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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



. 



LONG AGO 



AS INTERPRETED BY 



THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 



/ 



BY 



REV. E. F. BURR, D. D., LL. D., 

AUTHOR OF "UNIVERSAL BELIEFS," "CELESTIAL EMPIRES," ETC. 



I have considered the days ot old, the years of ancient times. 

DAVID. 

'loropia (pLAoao<pta karlv in TtapadeLyixaruv. 

THUCYDIDES. 






AMERICA IV TRACT SOCIETY, 

150 NASSAU STREET, NEW YORK. 






COPYRIGHT, 1888, 
BY AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY. 



PREFACE. 



From the necessity of the case the sacred nar- 
ratives are mullum in parvo. They are like a 
seed, which really contains and naturally suggests 
the structure and laws and appearance of the en- 
tire plant into which it can unfold. They are like 
some small arc of a planetary path, out of which 
an astronomer can draw all the elements of the 
entire orbit. These seed-facts of Scripture, these 
bits of thought-orbits to which the limits of a 
revelation necessarily confine it, is it not lawful 
for us to expand them into the pictures which 
they really contain ? 

For example: The Bible tells us that Abraham 
went from Ur of the Chaldees to Canaan. But 
the fact that he made the journey between these 
two places implies certain forethoughts and de- 
cisions, certain preparations for emigration, cer- 
tain farewells to kindred and friends, a certain 
mode of travelling immemorially used in the 
East, a crossing of the Euphrates and the Syrian 
desert by the route then currently in use, and so 
on. Is it not lawful for us to supply the missing 
details, certain and probable, and thus give vivid- 



4 preface;. 

ness and verisimilitude to our conceptions? 
Would it be "taking liberties " with the Bible? 

Does one "take liberties" with an old paint- 
ing when he gives it an appropriate frame? Does 
an astronomer- " take liberties " with a star when 
he shows it to us as sextuple and variously col- 
ored? Does a naturalist "take liberties " w T ith a 
skeleton when, by the help of his scientific infer- 
ences (if you please, his scientific imagination), 
he presents it to us in its original flesh and blood 
and in its native surroundings? Does the micro- 
scopist "take liberties" with the object in the 
focus of his instrument when he sees in it many 
particulars not noticed by common vision and 
describes them accordingly? Does an artist 
* ' take liberties ' ' with a sketch by Titian when 
he divines from the few master strokes into which 
the great master has thrown his whole individual- 
ity the complete conception as it lay in that mas- 
ter's mind? Does the preacher "take liberties " 
with his text when he declines to stop at its sur- 
face meanings, and goes on to set vividly forth 
other meanings that are implied in these, even to 
the extent of an entire sermon? 

The author does not propose to invent Scrip- 
ture, only to interpret it — to interpret it by the 
light which the great speculum of the nineteenth 
century reflects on both Scripture and the Long 
Ago. 

Lyme. Conn. 




n lifei 



I. HUMAN BEGINNINGS— ADAM _ 8 

II. NEW FOUNDATIONS— NOAH „ 51 

III. A CHOSEN GENERATION— ABRAHAM 73 

IV. FROM MAMRE TO MEMPHIS— JOSEPH 99 

V. THE ROD OF GOD— MOSES 129 

VI. CURSE ME ISRAEL— BALAAM 161 

VII. THE GOD OF BATTLES— JOSHUA 179 

VIII. GIVE US A KING— SAMUEL 207 

IX. A NEW DYNASTY— DAVID 229 

X. THE OVERCAST DAY— SOLOMON 249 

XL REFORMS BY FIRE AND SWORD— JOSIAH 267 

XII. A CHARIOT OF FIRE— ELIJAH 289 

XIII. THE FALLEN MANTLE— ELISHA 313 

XIV. GLORIOUS POLITICS-DANIEL_ .__ 343 



i. HUMAN BEGINNINGS. 



ADAM 
The Bon of God. 



LONG AGO. 



I. HUMAN BEGINNINGS— ADAM. 

The first man — was there a first? Has not 
the same succession of parents and children and 
children's children been going on during all the 
infinite past ? 

This would be against all the traditions, 
against much science, and especially against that 
supreme source of information which we revere as 
the infallible Word of God. There is a root to the 
great family tree of humanity. 

Nay, time was when there was not only no 
man on the earth, but no form whatever of animal 
life. No bird cut the air, no fish swam in the 
seas, no flocks or herds pastured the fields — not a 
worm or insect even was to be found on the whole 
round of the planet — no animal kingdom what- 
ever, nor indeed any vegetable kingdom. Not a 
tree, not a blade of grass, not even the humblest 
mosses and sea-weeds, gave a solitary example of 
the miracle of life. It was universal Sahara. 

Indeed, back of all this was a time when the 
solid globe itself had not begun to roll on its axis 



IO LONG AGO. 

and journey about the sun, when the grateful 
round of the seasons and day and night themselves 
were still things to come — nay, a time when the 
very atoms which compose the globe were not, 
but when absolute and voiceless vacancy reigned 
where now shine and rush (and perhaps sing as 
they part the ether) the solid foundations of the 
world. Matter itself is a manufactured article. 
The oxygen and the hydrogen, the gases and 
metals and earths, all things that make the ulti- 
mate basis of physical nature, instead of being co- 
eternal with God and merely wrought over by 
him into existing forms, were themselves pro- 
duced by him out of nothing. God was creator. 
Any other view means materialism: for if souls 
at least were not created, they were the product of 
arrangement; and if the product of arrangement, 
why not of the arrangement of material atoms? 
So the hypothesis of a substance other than mat- 
ter becomes unnecessary to explain nature. 

But was the time of creating the ultimate ele- 
ments of the earth different from that when these 
elements were combined into existing forms ? We 
cannot venture to say this. Despite current spec- 
ulations, the two times may have been perfectly 
identical. One stroke of creative will may have 
sufficed to start our earth out of nothingness into 
a complete rotating and travelling sphere. 

But after this, no doubt, came a glorious pro- 
cess of transformation — a process going on through 



HUMAN BEGINNINGS — ADAM. II 

a long succession of ages. The eartli slowly 
ripened into land and sea, into continents and isl- 
ands, into mountains and seas and rivers and 
oceans. The lands grew green with plant life, 
and grasses and grains and flowers and forests 
came to wave in the winds. Next animals in al- 
most countless numbers and sorts came trooping 
to their various habitats — came and went, again 
and again, at the potential drum-tap of the crea- 
tive Will through long ages beyond our count- 
ing, and left their bony remains in the always 
shifting and hardening earth. 

Last of all man appeared — appeared as a soli- 
tary specimen, appeared all at once as if by a 
thunder-clap. No matter if some do say the con- 
trary, and would have us believe that Adam was 
the gradual product of ages and generations of 
slowly improving species, the lowest member of 
which began in the mineral world and the highest 
in the brutal. This is mere imagination, and a 
hurtful one. Over against it we set a divine de- 
nial. Genesis is history, not a collection of legends 
from different sources .by nobody knows whom. 
None of its statements have been found in conflict 
with science, though some of them do conflict 
with speculations that sometimes ask to be called 
by that honorable name. As Genesis has been 
read from the beginning, as it is read to-day by 
the great mass of intelligent and devout Chris- 
tians, not excepting men in the first ranks of schol- 



12 LONG AGO. 

arship, the first man was the son of God and not 
the son of an ape. 

What sort of being was he — that first man who 
sprang suddenly from the wonder-working hands 
of God instead of creeping along piecemeal from 
the graduating hands of mere nature? Essentially 
the same sort of man that we see now. A double- 
natured being: a body allying him to brutes and 
to plants and even to the dust of the field — this 
body containing as inhabitant a soul altogether 
unlike itself in substance and attributes, and for 
the sake of which the body was as much made as 
was yonder palace for yonder king. In the image 
of its Maker was that first human soul made. It 
was made a thinker, a chooser; a being of emo- 
tion and conscience as well as of intelligence 
and will, a being deathless and capable of the 
loftiest heights of virtue. And God saw that this 
creature of his was ' ' very good. ' ' 

" Very good " — how much does this mean ? I 
suppose it means a degree of excellence in body 
and soul far greater than belongs to the average 
man now. On this point the Bible is not very 
communicative. Yet we are not without gleams 
of information. We would naturally suppose that 
the original man, fresh from the hands of his 
Maker, as yet unmarred by his own mistakes and 
sins, would be the best of his kind — in body sound, 
strong, large, shapely, fair, beyond what is now 
seen; in soul the same. This view is confirmed 



HUMAN BEGINNINGS — ADAM. 1 3 

by the fact that other species of animals generally 
began in their finest specimens: also by the tradi- 
tions common among the nations that history be- 
gan in gods, demigods, and heroes. 

If then we ask as to the amount of capital 
with which Adam set out in life, we answer that 
it was very large. He was not a better sort of 
ape; he was a true man. He was not an infant 
man; he came into the world in full stature of 
body and soul. He was not an ordinary adult, 
but an extraordinary one as to the excellence of 
both parts of his double nature. He was no sav- 
age, though not possessed of the arts and sci- 
ences belonging to the nineteenth century. The 
distinction between the savage and the civilized 
state does not lie in the degree of outward equip- 
ment that a man has, or even in the amount of 
his knowledge: it lies rather in the measure of 
ripeness in his soul faculties. If these are in that 
wakeful, well-balanced, masterful state out of 
which the achievements of civilization naturally 
come, the man is civilized. Plato and Homer 
were very civilized people, though the sciences 
and luxuries and even conveniences of our time 
were unknown to them. David and Moses were 
quite as remote from savagery as Swinburne and 
Darwin, and a good deal more remote from the 
fool who said in his heart, "There is no God." 
Those ancients went about barefooted, they wore 
no hats, they ate with their fingers; but their in- 



14 LONG AGO. 

tellectual and moral powers were in such a force- 
ful, ripened state as certainly is rare in any time 
and land, and such as contained potentially all 
the arts and sciences. A single glance at the 
faces of those old Greeks and Hebrews would, 
doubtless, have discriminated them widely from 
the best Australian savage, would have set them 
above most men in our most advanced communi- 
ties. I conceive of Adam as an earlier Moses or 
Plato. With less of the trappings of a man, on 
which little depends, he may have had more of 
that substance of a man on which everything de- 
pends. As to the amount of knowledge with 
which Adam started, it may have been little or 
nothing. But, then, his regal powers for acqui- 
ring knowledge were full-fledged and eager: be- 
sides, from the outset he had the noblest instruc- 
tors. Angels perhaps gave him the benefit of 
their knowledge. Even his Maker himself did 
not disdain to converse with him and become the 
teacher of his as yet sinless child. 

I have said that Adam, to begin with, was 
sinless. He was more. His moral constitution 
was perfectly sound. Not only was he not unde- 
vout, not selfish, not cruel, not deceitful, not 
prayerless, not indolent, not a lover of pleasure 
more than a lover of God — as somehow all his de- 
scendants tend strongly to be — but there were in 
him no biases towards such things. On the con- 
trary, there were biases towards whatever is true 



HUMAN BEGINNINGS — ADAM. 15 

and right. "God made man upright." Yes, 
our first father started forth on his career in this 
fair world, and in that still fairer garden, in robes 
of character much fairer still — robes white as the 
redeemed now wear, though never whitened like 
theirs by the blood of the Lamb. The original 
fountain of humanity was not like the waters of 
Marah and Jericho. The earliest spring was not 
even roiled. One could have seen heaven in its 
clear depths. 

Such was Adam. And the day that first saw 
him saw no man beside him. He stood forth on 
the broad earth a solitary specimen of his kind. 
Other animals abounded and had long abounded. 
The air was vocal with innumerable birds, the 
seas were stirred by innumerable fishes, the plains 
and forests were alive with flocks and herds; but 
between the poles that day the sun in its circuit 
saw but a single lonely man. The idea that there 
were several centres of man-origin, that the phys- 
ical diversities among men are due to this fact, 
and that our Scriptures merely give the history of 
one of the original families, is not reconcilable 
with certain teachings of the New Testament, 
while all known differences among men as to 
color and feature are easily explainable by climat- 
ic and other local differences operating through 
long periods of time. 

How long ago was that first of human birth- 
days? No scholar makes it less than about 6,000 



1 6 LONG AGO. 

years; some make it much more. Geologists take 
very kindly to great figures, and sometimes their 
figures have crowded on all sail and ventured into 
the wide ocean of millions on millions. Students 
of ancient history have sometimes been hardly 
less generous in their estimates. But it has for 
many years been noticeable that the tendency of 
research has been towards lower and lower figures 
for our past; and it now seems safe to say that the 
views of Archbishop Ussher and Sir Isaac New- 
ton, which have been generally accepted among 
Christians, cannot be far astray. Apparently 
from 6,000 to 8,000 years will give ample margin 
for the explanation of all known facts, whether 
geological, ethnological, historical, or Biblical. 
The physical differences among races, the high 
civilization of certain countries at a remote period, 
the presence of human bones and implements in 
very ancient geological situations, can, in the 
judgment of scientists of the first class, all be ex- 
plained on the supposition of this moderate an- 
tiquity for man. About 6,000 years ago, then, 
our first father made his solitary appearance 
among the living multitudes of the world. 

Where was it ? To what part of the earth was 
Adam native? Those who take the Bible for 
guide have no difficulty in answering the question. 
Hardly more have they who confine themselves 
to tracing the converging lines of language and 
history. x\sia was the original seat of the human 



HUMAN BEGINNINGS — ADAM. 1J 

race. The neighborhood of the Euphrates first 
saw the first man. Undoubtedly this was the dis- 
trict from which the centrifugal forces of heaven 
and earth have scattered humanity so widely. I 
say undoubtedly. Not that there have not been 
speculations to the contrary. What is there 
against which there have not been speculations? 
Some of us have heard of Lemuria, a continent 
now submerged in the Indian Ocean; of Atlantis, 
now under the waters of the Atlantic; of the Arc- 
tic Circle, once tropical, though now covered with 
eternal ice and snow, as Adam's birthplace. But 
what care we for such guesses — we who have the 
Bible that never guesses! 

But the question, Where? is not yet answered 
as fully as it may be. Adam started not only in 
that part of Asia which is watered by the Euphra- 
tes, but in a garden or park of special loveliness. 
In knowing that the place was a garden and spe- 
cially prepared as the home of a holy being whom 
heavenly guests were frequently to visit, we seem 
to know that it was the choice spot of the world, 
the palace among its dwelling-places. " See Na- 
ples and die," said some one. "See Paradise 
and live," said God to Adam. Here were all the 
outward means for the most delightful living. 

o o 

Whatever mere environment could do for a good 
man was done; for "I will make thy wilderness 
like Eden and thy desert as the garden of God." 
" The land which was desolate is become like the 

Long Ago. 2 



Io LONG AGO. 

garden of Eden." Such language encourages the 
fancy to paint with brilliant colors. We say to 
ourselves, That must have been the garden of 
gardens. No pleasure-ground of kings has ever 
equalled it. Have you known a healthy place ? 
This was healthier. Have you known a luxuri- 
ant place ? This was more luxuriant. Have you 
known a place where beauty and grandeur so 
joined hands with affluent productiveness that 
travellers have been drawn to it from the ends of 
the earth ? This place was still more admirable — 
a sort of suburb of the incomparable paradise 
above. Balmy air, ravishing scenery, delicious 
fruits, pure fountains, musical streams, plain and 
hill and forest in just proportion, neither arctic 
cold nor tropical heat — in short, it was the glory 
of all lands, the jewel that sparkled on the bosom 
of the world, a home to match the regal character 
and endowments of its inhabitant. God has an 
eye to the fitness of things. He does not build a 
palace for swine nor a stye for a sovereign. He 
will not put a bad man in heaven nor a good man 
in hell. Men should not wonder at the mixed 
beauty and dreariness of the world, for it only 
matches the mixed character of its people. 

Thus royally circumstanced, Adam stood forth 
as a sovereign in the midst of animated nature. 
He wore no crown, he bore no sceptre, he lived in 
no marble palace; but of all the teeming popula- 
tion of the globe he was easily the most exalted 



HUMAN BEGINNINGS — ADA:,I. 1 3 

in nature and faculty. So his Maker gave him 
the primacy of place that belonged to his primacy 
of nature. He gave him the proprietorship of 
land and sea and air. He authorized him to sub- 
due the soil, the waters, the winds, with their no 
end of various population. Some subjects would 
be insubordinate, some would be in chronic insur- 
rection; but their king has been anointed by the 
King of kings, and this sub-king may proceed at 
his convenience to put a beneficent yoke on not 
only all living creatures about him, but also on 
the very laws of nature themselves. Gravity 
shall do his bidding. The very lightnings shall 
work for him. Sun, moon, and stars shall serve 
him as chronometers, educators, pilots. If any 
protest, he at least can say, " I am king by divine 
right." 

What must have been the sensations of the 
first man when he first came to self-consciousness, 
when his opening senses first drank in the won- 
ders of the earth and sky ! He saw at his feet the 
beauty of grasses and shrubs and flowers. He 
lifted his eyes, and lo, the bolls and canopies of 
mighty trees and openings out into glorious 
stretches of landscape with plains and waters and 
distant mountains. Still higher turns his eye, 
and lo, the soft blue sky arching so grandly over 
him and the golden pomp of that heavenly eye 
which men call the sun. Between the heavens 
and the earth all his senses are joyfully absorbed. 



20 LONG AGO. 

His ears drink in the music of winds and insects 
and birds and running waters. The fragrance of 
fruits and flowers is in his nostrils. The softness 
and coolness of zephyrs are on his cheek and in 
his heart; and when his hand instinctively carries 
to his lips the water and fruits still another world 
of enjoyment opens to him its gates. In this di- 
rection and in that, beneath, above, around, with- 
in, innumerable glorious gates — almost like those 
of the New Jerusalem — seem flung open at once 
to him, admitting him to as many worlds of charm- 
ing wonder. And when the sun floated noise- 
lessly westward through the blue deep of heaven 
and at last passed below the horizon in a flood of 
shattered rainbows, and soft shadows stole over the 
scene, how was his astonishment kindled anew as 
star after star beamed out from the darkened sky, 
till at last a countless host of loving eyes seemed 
looking down upon him from behind the crescent 
buckler of the queenly moon. 

Meanwhile perhaps his kindling senses and 
thought had not overlooked his own shapely and 
wonderful self — those hands, those feet, that whole 
buoyant and mysterious microcosm which he knew 
to belong to himself as nothing else did. " Fear- 
fully and wonderfully made!" As this thought 
gradually ripened within him in reference to both 
himself and his surroundings, may it not well 
have been that Adam did not need to have a Voice 
come to him, saying, "All these have a Maker, 



HUMAN BEGINNINGS — ADAM. 21 

and I am He"? May not his upright and well- 
balanced thought have spontaneously travelled at 
once from the creature to the Creator along that 
eternal bridge that spans the gulf between a glo- 
rious effect and its still more glorious Cause? 

But the Scriptures tell us that the first man 
was not left for his religious ideas to his own sol- 
itary musings. His Maker came in some worthy 
form and taught him — perhaps first of all taught 
him language, if this was not already his by an 
original instinct, as it is conceivable that it may 
have been. For what is instinct of any sort, in 
man or brute, but the innate sort of knowledge 
that precedes all experience, though not axio- 
matic, and belonging to the original capital with 
which life starts; and why may not a faculty of 
language-building belong to the original make-up 
of a man as well as a faculty of nest-building to a 
bird or of comb-building to a bee ? But this need 
not be insisted on, for we know that from the 
outset Adam had other sources of information 
than his own instincts and reason. Supernatural 
friends, we suppose, mingled freely with his life. 
Of course they became his magnificent teachers. 
If they did not originate language and the pri- 
mary religious ideas, they may have greatly em- 
phasized and enlarged them. We may be sure 
that much sensible intercourse with heavenly be- 
ings would have been to him a revelation — have 
set him forward wonderfully on the path of all 



22 LONG AGO. 

useful knowledge. If I could have but a month, 
or even less, of free talk with Gabriel, methinks 
I would learn much that universities and libraries 
can never teach me. 

We find it necessary to both physical and spir- 
itual soundness to have something to do. Occu- 
pation — stated and, if possible, congenial occupa- 
tion — is a wonderful safeguard to health, happi- 
ness, and holiness. Accordingly God gave his 
man a business. Our present forms of business 
chiefly grow out of our relations with one another. 
The merchant, the mechanic, the sailor, the doc- 
tor, the lawyer, are mostly busy in dealing with 
men. But the newly-made Adam was without a 
fellow. His business therefore must deal with 
the garden and its products. So he was set to 
dress and keep the garden. There was soil to 
be loosened, there were vines to be trimmed and 
trained, the habits of plants to be learned, fruits 
to be tested, cherished, and gathered. In addition 
to business for the body, and partly in consequence 
of it, there was business for the mind in getting 
acquainted with himself, his surroundings, and 
his Maker. As our children during their first few 
years have much to learn, and are really then at 
their busiest as scholars, so that full-statured child 
whom we call Adam must have been exceedingly 
busy in those earliest days of his. And it was a 
good thing for him. It helped to steady him in 
the right path. 



HUMAN BEGINNINGS — ADAM. 23 

It also helped him to bear his solitude, if his 
solitude lasted long. But probably it did not. It 
was not good for man to be alone; and from the 
outset God meant for him a sympathetic compan- 
ion. So one day Adam fell asleep. While he 
slept, as if to symbolize and emphasize the close- 
ness of the relationship intended between the two, 
God took from the sleeper a bone and around it 
built up another human being — alike and yet un- 
like — to be a helpmeet for the hermit. Behold 
Eve, our first mother ! fair to behold, by all odds 
the fairest flower in that flowery garden; more ra- 
diant and more welcome than the dawn which 
perhaps brought her to meet her mate, to share 
his pleasant labors and thoughts and affections. 
Like him spotless, like him biassed to all good, 
like him lofty in capacity and aspiration, like him 
capable of knowing, loving, and glorifying her 
Maker in an immortal life. Then first the gar- 
den became a home; before it was only a palace. 
Then a new beauty and brightness came to every 
flower. The charm and glory of a congenial fel- 
lowship colored every familiar object into richer 
hues. The sky was bluer, the water clearer, the 
foliage greener, on account of that lovely new pres- 
ence, that other self. Devout Adam worshipped 
and gave thanks. In giving- him that other self 
God had given him something better than a par- 
adise to live in, something better than sovereignty 
over the wide world. Henceforth they would 



24 LONG AGO. 

walk side by side, eye answering to eye, smile to 
smile, and heart to heart. Henceforth to Adam 
the sweetness of life has been doubled. Lo, the 
first wedding ! Their own hearts, one in sympa- 
thy and destiny, proclaimed the banns. Her Heav- 
enly Father gave the woman away. The already 
wedded earth and sky were joyful witnesses. 

And now the condition of Adam seems com- 
plete. Founded in complete goodness, encour- 
aged by all pleasant natural surroundings, sup- 
ported by ample but not wearing occupation, vis- 
ited and taught by heavenly friends, especially the 
Creator himself-at last blossoming into that dou- 
ble life and fruitfulness which takes place when 
two equal and kindred hearts and lives become 
one; to crown all, looking down the long per- 
spective of immortal years-who can conceive of 
a more delightful earthly life than man has now 
come to enjoy? Now indeed it is paradise. With 
such a domain, with such friends, with such a 
lofty nature, with such prospects, with such com- 
panionship, what did the first man want more in 
advance of heaven ? 

In this blissful state, however, there lay hid a 
certain danger: that primitive virtue was yet in 
the gristle, it had not yet had time to harden into 
bone. Apparently the only way in which such 
a moral nature as ours can acquire stamina — 
power to resist attack, power to stand amid blasts 
of temptation — is by actual and successful conflict 



HUMAN BEGINNINGS — ADAM. C5 

for a time with the minor degrees of temptation. 
Does not the young tree by wrestling with the 
lesser winds gradually strengthen to stand against 
a tempest? The fresh, untested virtue of Adam 
needed to wrestle to a certain extent in order to 
become strong. So God called him to encounter 
a temptation. That it might be successfully re- 
sisted, he made the temptation as small as possi- 
ble and the motive to resist as large as possible. 
What easier to resist than the temptation to eat 
the fruit of a certain tree when there was a plenty 
of other delicious fruit at hand ? What mighty 
motive to resist when yielding meant loss of 
divine favor, loss of a paradise, loss of life, and 
perhaps even loss of the soul itself? 

One day Eve found herself near a tree that 
bore forbidden fruit. A serpent also was near — as 
one is apt to be in such circumstances — a serpent 
that contained a greater serpent, even that old 
serpent which is the devil and Satan. The brute 
began to talk. What, a brute talk? This won- 
derful thing was enough in itself to secure Eve's 
closest attention. Whereupon the enemy pre- 
tended great interest in her welfare. He expatia- 
ted on the beauty and deliciousness of the forbid- 
den fruit. He laid special stress on its wisdom- 
giving quality: had not he himself received from 
it the faculty of speech and even of eloquence ? 
Let her also eat and become as one of the gods. 
As for the prohibition, it was cruel. As for the 



26 LONG AGO. 

penalty, it would never be inflicted. It was mere- 
ly designed to frighten her away from a career too 
lofty to suit her jealous Maker. No, the penalty 
of death was a mere make-believe. He was sure 
of it. Who has a better right to be sure than one 
who has tried ? Did he die as soon as he had eat- 
en? So he was dogmatic. He seemed to have 
knowledge from original sources. And the wo- 
man listened and drew nearer. The fruit looked, 
ah, so fair ! And the tempter continued to talk, 
ah, so temptingly ! Never mind if he did repeat 
himself; it was worth saying twice and more; was 
not he himself a monument of what that glorious 
fruit could do for one? Had not he himself been 
uplifted by it into an incalculably nobler life ? 

At last the woman yielded, as they who par- 
ley with temptation are almost sure to do. She 
should, as did Jesus long after, have indignantly 
cast from her the first evil suggestion. Whether 
she had been cautioned or not against the great 
adversary, his flat-footed contradiction of her Ma- 
ker and Benefactor should have startled her at 
once into impetuous resistance. But, alas, it did 
not! Down went the flag of loyalty, up went the 
flag of insurrection. A great pang darts through 
the heart of the world. The tempter slinks away. 
He has no longer occasion to exert himself. The 
die is cast. His work is done; and the tempter 
can resign his place to the temptress. How can 
Adam bear to part his lot from that of his bride ? 



HUMAN BEGINNINGS — ADAM. 27 

He does not. He takes the fruit from her hand and 
joins her in her sin and its dreadful consequences. 

What were the consequences ? Did the heav- 
ens instantaneously blacken ? Shot there down 
into the garden a lurid bolt that set all things 
a-blazing and a-quaking? Fell there at once on 
the ears of the two sinners the rush of departing 
wings as good angels fled from the spot, or of 
coining wings as demons flocked in to follow up 
the success of their leader? Very likely not. 
But there were immediate tragic consequences. 
Soils became stubborn. The better vegetable 
forces ebbed. Tares, thorns, and briers started 
into new vigor. Brutes took on looks of fear and 
antagonism. In a moment the human body be- 
came mortal. In a moment the vitality fled, as 
with a thousand wings, from human happiness. 
In the room of the original biases to good came 
biases to evil. In the room of a friendly conscience 
came a hostile one. In the room of love and confi- 
dence came fear; and a dreadful form whose name 
was the second death loomed above the horizon 
and began to march on the sinners. They tremble 
at the distant lightnings of his eye. Meanwhile 
the garden is no longer a place for them. Drive 
them out, ye angels, and set a flaming sword 
whirling everyway to prevent their return. Sin- 
ners are not fit for such a heaven below. 

Such were the bitter consequences of the Fall 
to our first parents. But the bitterness did not 



28 LONG AGO. 

end with them. According to the law that "like 
produces like," they transmitted to their children 
a corrupted nature. Doubtless their Maker in- 
formed them in advance how it would be, that 
they might have, in addition to other conserving 
influences, that of the natural tenderness of pa- 
rents for their children. But in vain. And so, of 
all the millions on millions of mankind that have 
been born since, not one has come into the world 
without depraved tendencies. Dreadful heirloom! 
A case of blood-poisoning of the worst kind, 
where the virus that runs in the blood does not 
weaken in the course of endless transmissions. 
And yet this stubborn hereditary depravity is not 
irresistible in its working. It does not mean 
fate. In no case does it shut up a man helplessly 
to sin. It sometimes makes virtue very difficult, 
but never impossible. 

Every man comes into life at a serious disad- 
vantage on account of Adam's sin; but then it 
would be hard to show that the general law of 
heredity to which the fact belongs is not on the 
whole advantageous, especially in connection with 
an economy of grace. Good propensities are 
transmissible as well as bad ones. As matters 
stand, parents are under great motive to look after 
their own characters in the interest of their chil- 
dren. Every good trait they acquire, as well as 
every bad one, is apt to reappear in their success- 
ors in some way or degree. As they love their 



HUMAN BEGINNINGS — ADAM. 29 

children let them be careful. Let them not for- 
get that there is such a thing as family likeness, 
and that "blood will tell." 

Out of the beautiful garden, that seemed more 
delightful than ever now that they were losing it, 
out into a stubborn and thorny world from which 
a living had to be wrung with sore hands and 
sweating brows, went the guilty pair never to re- 
turn. The paradise above was still open to them, 
but nevermore the paradise below. Not prayers, 
not even that hearty repentance which in certain 
directions can do so much, could help them in 
this matter. They could be pardoned, the penal 
consequences of sin in a future state could be re- 
mitted, but they could not be put back fully into 
their ante-bellum state: a fact we are not to forget 
when we are tempted to sin. If we yield to temp- 
tation we may still be pardoned and saved on cer- 
tain terms; but we cannot be sure that bitter con- 
sequences of one sort or another will not follow us 
all our days. We may look to be excluded from 
some garden. Some tree of life we may never 
see again. Some sword will play between us and 
a path we used to delight in. We must take all 
this into account when estimating the cost of sin- 
ning. 

We must take into account how widespread 
and lasting may be the consequences of a single 
sin, even of one that occupies scarcely more than 
a moment in the doino-. The taking of a bit of 



30 LONG AGO. 

fruit was not a very bulky thing. Just a flash of 
time and the thing was begun, carried through, 
finished. And yet that little act which was all 
over in a breath drew after it a most formidable 
train of consequences. It made all the difference 
between the present condition of the worst part of 
the world and that of the original paradise. Look 
the world over, and in all its latitudes and longi- 
tudes you will not find a single person on whom 
the disfiguring mark of that first sin does not 
show itself with dreadful conspicuousness. Look 
over the long past of history, and among all the 
crowds which the records permit us to see, we see 
not a solitary face save one that has not been 
scarred by the same woful cause. And the pros- 
pective will be like the retrospective. We know 
not how long the future of our world will be, but 
this we know, that from now to the judgment not 
a single person will appear who in body and soul 
and outward condition will not be the worse for 
that first offence of the first man. Would that we 
might stop here. Would that we could fence in 
the effects of that first sinful act in the garden of 
Eden by the boundaries of the world and of time! 
But no, there is no such quarantining possible. 
The misery crowds by death and discharges itself 
in a fearful storm on the wide oceans of eternity. 
On one of them, rather, not on both. Oh, how 
the billows swell and toss as the evil blast falls on 
this ! Oh, how the soul-ships are shattered be- 



HUMAN BEGINNINGS — ADAM. 31 

yond repair! Behold how great a matter a little 
fire kindleth. ! The beginning of strife (with God 
as with man) is as when one letteth out water; 
therefore leave off contention before it be meddled 
with—such is the fact, and such is the moral we 
should learn from it. 

But aside from the case of Adam, it is in the 
line of abundant experience that no one can tell 
when or where the harmful effects of a single 
wrong act will end. We must not be surprised 
to meet them long years after the original act 
seemed dead and buried and almost forgotten. 
Nothing short of eternity itself may suffice to in- 
clude all its issues. 

Was Adam sorry for his sin ? Doubtless, after 
some one or more of the many kinds of sorrow 
which we know. How could he help being sorry 
when. he came to experience how costly a venture 
he had made? But was he penitent as well as 
sorry? That is another matter; but still we can- 
not but hope that he sorrowed after the godly sort 
that needs not to be repented of. If he did he was 
pardoned and saved, as all penitent sinners ever 
since have been; that is, through the atonement 
of Christ, prospective or past. And it does seem 
as if a single step in transgression would not be so 
hard to recover from as that long series of down- 
ward steps which makes almost every conversion 
now so hard; and it seems too as if the bitter ex- 
perience which followed so promptly on that first 



33 LONG AGO. 

human sin must have had very great reclaiming 
power on one not yet hardened in evil. So it has 
been commonly believed that our first parents 
promptly became penitents, though they never 
went back in this world to their original sinless- 
ness. This view is also favored by the fact that 
w 7 e find them using for clothing the skins of ani- 
mals which probably had been offered in sacrifice 
as atonement. So it seems that the way of par- 
don had been pointed out to them and that they 
had at least used the formal part of it. 

How long was Adam in the garden ? Proba- 
bly not long. Had he been there long enough to 
establish a habit of obedience he might not have 
fallen. Habit is mighty. The crafty enemy 
knew this w T ell — knew that the most promising 
time for his attack w r ould be at the beginning of 
things, while the moral nature of man was com- 
paratively feeble and inexperienced. So he prob- 
ably made haste. He rose early to his work. 
He watched, though he did not pray. He took 
the first opportunity to try his fortune — and Ad- 
am's misfortune. So it may have been only a 
few days that Adam occupied his paradise. Then 
sin cast him out, Not so much the angel who 
drew the flaming sword upon him; not so much 
his Maker who sent the angel and said, "Go, 
drive the sinners forth;" but the sin back of all, 
it was really this that issued and served the writ 
of ejectment. This passed and executed the act 



HUMAN BEGINNINGS — ADAM. 33 

of expatriation. This drove trie king from his 
palace and destroyed the palace itself. And it 
has destroyed many palaces since — sometimes 
/tomes, sometimes churches, sometimes nations. 
Where are the seven churches of Asia, where the 
Assyrians, Egyptians, Hebrews to-day? Cast out 
of their gardens, every one of them. The gardens 
themselves no longer exist. Oh, sin, the van- 
dal ! 

Discontent is possible in the most favored situ- 
ations. We need not be great travellers or great 
readers to find abundant proof of this. When 
a child has been delicately nurtured, and sur- 
rounded with all that great riches and parental 
fondness can supply, we are by no means sure 
of finding him in a satisfied state. Perhaps he 
compares very unfavorably in this respect with 
most children whose circumstances have always 
been full of self-denial. Scan the faces and bear- 
ing of men of affluence and high position, from 
kings downward, and you will see in them quite 
as little appearance of contentment as you will 
see in humbler homes. Is it depravity ? But 
this discontent can start where no antecedent de- 
pravity exists. Thus it started in our first pa- 
rents. Upright Adam had all that heart could 
wish. It would be hard to conceive an element 
of reasonable enjoyment which he did not possess. 
Yet he became discontented because he was not 
allowed to eat of a certain tree. But there has 



74 LONG AGO. 

been a stronger and a stranger case than this. 
Satan became dissatisfied even in heaven. What 
could Lucifer, son of the morning, wish that he 
did not possess? Well, there was, and from the 
nature of the case must have been, even in heav- 
en some forbidden fruit. At least the throne of 
the Eternal must have been such. Nay, it was 
of course forbidden him to say Nay to any divine 
command. He must please to do whatever pleases 
the King. The moment he should become dissat- 
isfied with this principle at any point of conduct 
he would become a fallen angel. And a fallen 
angel he became. Somehow, amid all the won- 
derful affluence of his condition, discontent arose — 
arose out of the very bosom of righteousness, 
without a parent of its own kind. Surely we may 
conclude that no height of faculty and splendor 
of circumstances can secure one from discontent. 
All the cornucopias of this sort might be emptied 
on us in vain. Not what we have, but what we 
are — that is the essential point to one seeking 
happiness. One thinks of Hainan, to whom all 
his prosperity was as nothing so long as Mordecai 
sat at the king's gate. Self-government along 
the line of God's will is what is wanted, a 
disposition to be pleased with whatever pleases 
God. Nothing short of this will save us from rest- 
lessness in any paradise of condition, even though 
it be the third heaven. It is impossible to satisfy 
a moral being by any conceivable accumulation 



HUMAN BEGINNINGS — ADAM. 35 

upon him of outward good. For this, man, 
look to your innermost self. If matters here are 
all right, no scantiness of the outward can much 
trouble you : if matters here are all wrong, no out- 
ward abundance can possibly put you at your 
ease. See where you are to set up your precau- 
tions and lay out your toil. But men too often act 
as if this were not the pivotal point, as if they had 
nothing to do but to heap up outward advantages 
in order to fill all aching voids. What a mistake! 
Adam and his garden being witnesses, what a 
mistake ! Satan and his brighter garden being 
witnesses, what a mistake ! And we too often 
make the same mistake for our children. We are 
concerned for their comfort ; we want, if possible, 
to give them riches of content; and so, instead of 
laying ourselves out to teach them self-govern- 
ment along the lines of duty, we lay ourselves out 
to bring about them as much of an outward para- 
dise as money and its adjutants can command. 
Look to character first, O parents ! Unless this 
is as it should be in your children all your sche- 
ming and toiling for them will leave them mis- 
erable: with this they will be wonderfully inde- 
pendent of circumstances. A desert may be as 
the garden of God. 

Whither went the primitive pair when cast 
out from their garden? Did they remain close 
by, within sight of the blissful enclosure, within 
hearing of its melodies, within range of its per- 



36 LONG AGO. 

fumed breath ? Or did they go far away where 
there would be less to remind them of what they 
had lost? Who knows? The silence of Holy 
Scripture is quite as remarkable as its speaking. 
Our curiosity (if you please, say our science) 
would give much to have the first five chapters of 
Genesis expanded into as many volumes. But who 
knows that it would be best? We know that 
there is such a thing as a silence that is golden 
on the part of men, especially of men in high 
public positions. They ought not to answer the 
hundredth part of the questions that might be put 
to them. Neither ought God. Nor does he. 
When will you die, by what disease or accident, 
in what place — does our Maker answer such ques- 
tions ? Is not your whole future mostly a sealed 
book to you, though so well known to him? Yes, 
with God is a sublime silence as well as a sublime 
speech. He makes selections ; his great words 
blaze out here and there a fact at great intervals, 
like stars in the sky, as to most things that our 
curiosity would like to probe, his majestic reti- 
cence says, " It is not wise," or "It is not impor- 
tant," or "Wait; now is not the time." Such 
are the reasons why he is so often silent in some 
five hundred languages. Such are the reasons, 
doubtless, why such great gaps are found in the 
early Biblical records. What divine wisdom saw 
it was best for us to know was set down — nothing 
else. The narrative goes over thousands of years 



HUMAN BEGINNINGS — ADAM. 27 

at a stride. Here and there light on a mountain- 
top — the valleys all in the shadow. Fastigia 
reruin is the motto. Is it not a lesson worth re- 
membering that there is a host of even truths 
which, all things considered, are not worth the 
telling, especially since we are sometimes told, 
as if it were incontrovertible, that all truth is 
valuable? 

Adam had many children to bear his defaced 
image. The fate of two of these, at least, was 
tragic. One hardly knows which smote the 
hearts of the parents with the keener anguish — ■ 
the fate of Abel, whom Cain in a fit of passion- 
ate jealousy slew, or the fate of Cain, whom God 
branded and drove far away into an accursed vag- 
abondism. How keenly Adam must have felt 
that first murder — and such a murder! "And 
this is owing to mef* his thoughts sobbed out as 
he covered the poor dead face with kisses. " And 
this is owing to me," his thoughts sobbed out as 
the murderer, without leave-taking, fled towards 
the horizon and disappeared for ever from his 
sight. Adam was right. Not only the sin and 
misery of Cain, but those of all his other children, 
the world over, have sprouted from the dreadful 
seed that he planted. As he looked abroad on his 
fast-spreading descendants and discovered not a 
solitary individual among them who had not 
come into the world more or less scarred by his 
sin, how severely he must have taken himself to 



3§ LONG AGO. 

task for what lie saw! Many a bitter tear, no 
doubt, did he shed; many a sore lamentation, no 
doubt, did he utter over the mighty harvest of 
sins and sorrows and Cains that was springing 
up over all the world from the seed which he had 
sown. How cutting the thought that his pos- 
terity, down to the end of time, would point back 
to him as they sinned and suffered and say, " Had 
it not been for his crime we should have known 
nothing of this — no guilt, no trouble, no death." 
Ah, that bitter "might have been " ! 

Parents should take warning. Unless they are 
careful some Cain-like ones among their children 
may open on them the flood-gates of self-reproach. 
Do they realize that the old law of heredity is still 
in force, and that to the depravity which their 
children will inherit from Adam they may add 
another springing from themselves? As a man 
may make an addition to the fortune which his 
father bequeathed to him, and bequeath both to 
his own children; as a man may add another 
taint of bodily disease to that which he has him- 
self inherited, and entail both taints on his heirs; 
so soul-taints may accumulate as they pass down- 
ward. O parents, are you adding to the Adamic 
taint ? Are you making a direct contribution of 
your own to the virus that already flows in the 
veins of your children ? See that you be far from 
doing it — unless you want to feel some of those 
thorns and dashers of self-accusation that Adam 



HUMAN BEGINNINGS— ADAM. 39 

must have felt when he saw the Cains among his 
descendants. There are more cutting things than 
knives. It will be a cutting thing to have your 
children hurl accusations against you, instead of 
rising up and calling you blessed. You are sure 
to have pains enough from other sources without 
this. Therefore, when tempted to any evil step, 
at once say Nay, and say it stoutly, for the sake of 
the little ones as well as for your own sake. 
When that to which you are tempted is not what 
is reckoned gross sin, but only religious unbelief, 
indifference, procrastination, and such things, do 
not forget that even such traits in you may leave 
their marks on the natures that spring from you, 
and straiten for them that strait gate that leadeth 
unto life. It will not be a pleasant thing for you 
to feel that you at least deserve to have your chil- 
dren point back to you and say, " Alas, this fatal 
bias came to us from you." This is what we 
have been saying to Adam these 6,000 years or so, 
and what we have a right to say. So your chil- 
dren will have a right to complain of you if you 
give an unhappy bent to their moral natures. Do 
it not — lest some day the Nemesis of your own 
thoughts overtake you. Poor children ! as de- 
scendants of Adam their way is already hard 
enough; do not make it harder. As heirs of the 
great Fall their prospects are already sufficiently 
dark; do not make them darker. For your own 
sakes as well as for theirs, O ye fathers and mo- 



4-0 LONG AGO. 

tliers who have such vast capacity for self-re- 
proach, see to it that the characters you form and 
the lives you live are the very best — for the law 
of entail is upon you. 

Adam was a very long-lived person. Instead 
of the pitiful threescore-and-ten years allowed to 
us more than nine centuries were allowed to him. 
The original soundness and vigor of his body 
were such that even the great disorganizer sin was 
slow in wearing away its abounding vitality. So 
the patriarch lived on and on. Perhaps he some- 
times wished that he were not so tenacious of life: 
perhaps there were times when he would most 
gladly have sunk at once into the earth from 
which he came (as when he first saw Abel lying 
in blood slain by his brother's hand); but doubt- 
less in general it was with him as it is with us 
and as it has been with most of the human beings 
we have seen or heard of. Love of life is in- 
stinctive. Without reflection we start back from 
losing it. At the first flash of danger we lift our 
hands to parry the stroke. It is the inborn, un- 
reasoning principle of self-preservation which we 
share with all the brutes. Adam shared it. And 
so despite his great trials, despite the sad sights 
he must have seen in the sinful and sorrowful 
homes that went branching out from his, despite 
the fearful anticipations of worse sin and worse 
sorrow he must have had as he watched the down- 
ward trend of society, he went on from year to 



HUMAN BEGINNINGS — ADAM. 41 

year preserving his life by eating and drinking, 
watching against accident, declining as he could 
sickness and hazards of all kinds. So centuries 
came and went, and left him upright as the palm. 
His hair did not whiten. His skin did not wrin- 
kle. His foot lost nothing of its elasticity, his 
hand nothing of its grip. Would he ever die — 
that stalwart man who began hundreds of years 
ago and yet his eye is not dim nor his natural 
force abated ? Has God forgotten his penalty, or 
has the All-merciful concluded to remit it? Ah, 
that great life, that life that is something to speak 
of, that life that to our eyes seems almost an im- 
mortality: and yet very likely at its close it seem- 
ed to Adam as a hand-breadth ! 

During this long succession of years Adam 
saw human society and history developing from 
the very germ. As the wave of humanity went 
out from him in ever-increasing volume and force 
he saw knowledge increasing, inventions multi- 
plying, the useful arts beginning their toil, com- 
merce starting its caravans. Gradually men be- 
came acquainted with the various products of the 
earth. They found the metals and learned how 
to use them. They found raw material of many 
sorts and learned how to manufacture it into 
useful articles. Invention succeeded invention, 
discovery trod on the heels of discovery. Differ- 
ent places were found to have different foods, 
animals, minerals; and so a system of exchange 



42 LONG AGO. 

grew up — slowly grew as grew the grains and for- 
ests and animals. 

If Adam had transmitted to us a full autobi- 
ography we should have known for certain about 
many first things in human society about which 
much curiosity is felt and much speculation in- 
dulged. How did civil government begin? Un- 
der what circumstances did the original uniform 
surface of humanity break up into tribes and na- 
tions? No ark has floated down to us a record of 
what Adam saw as the centuries rolled on; but 
without it we can easily see how some things 
must have been. Naturally the first father taught 
and ruled his immediate children, during all 
their earlier years. His laws were the only hu- 
man laws they knew. So family government lies 
back of all other governments. When the chil- 
dren of Adam went out from his home and estab- 
lished new families, at no great distance, they 
would naturally refer to him all the larger ques- 
tions of difficulty that might arise in their mutual 
relations; for no position among them could be so 
commanding as that of their common ancestor. 
So patriarchal government was added to family 
government. After a while the families became 
so many, and so widely separated and so diverse 
in their interests, that the tribal relation to a com- 
mon ancestor was not strong enough to stand the 
strain of the passions and greeds and ambitions of 
increasingly wicked men. The strong trespassed 



HUMAN BEGINNINGS — ADAM. 43 

on the weak. Ambition strove with ambition, 

5 3 



covetousness with covetousness, selfishness with 



selfishness, wrath with wrath. So civil govern- 
ment arose — at first, probably, in a person distin- 
guished for personal prowess. The chief grasped 
and became an autocrat. The autocrat grasped 
from feebler autocrats and became a king. The 
various tribes under him gradually compacted into 
a nation. It is possible that all the earlier civil 
governments were not of the kingly type, but that 
sometimes the heads of families, seeing the neces- 
sity for something sterner and more compelling 
than patriarchism, drew together for consultation, 
made laws for themselves, and appointed some 
one or more of their own number to look after 
their execution. If so, the democracy must have 
soon graduated into a monarchy. All the states 
visible at the dawn of profane history are headed 
by kings. 

One of the most trying as well as one of the 
easiest observations of Adam as the centuries 
passed must have been that of the moral deterio- 
ration of his race. He had no daily newspapers 
to chronicle for his breakfast-table the crimes 
from all parts of the world; no magic wire flashed 
to him over lands and under seas the latest enor- 
mity of the hour; but he must have seen plenty 
of evidence in the course of his lon^ life that all 
flesh was corrupting its way, and that the time 
could not be far distant when the earth would be 



44 LONG AGO. 

filled with violence. Plainly, men were more 
and more losing sight of the fact that they were 
brothers. Cains were multiplying. Whole com- 
munites were facing one another with death- 
meaning eyes and death-bearing hands; nay, were 
tugging and tearing at one another's throats like 
so many mastiffs. Wickedness towards man is 
always kept pace with by wickedness towards 
God. " He is very good God ward, but very hard 
man ward" — what an absurdity! Some very 
strange coalitions, partnerships, marriages, have 
occurred in the world; but never one between 
love of God and hatred of man. So Adam saw 
his race getting away farther and farther from 
their Maker. They grew in impiety as fast as 
they grew in inhumanity. From century to cen- 
tury the air grew fouler and the light dimmer, 
whether one looked heavenward or earthward. 
Was this a pleasant fact to the common father, 
think you ? Not if he was the penitent man we 
have fancied. Not unless he had become the 
devil nobody has fancied. Penitent Adam must 
have been shocked at the contrast between the 
paradise that was and the pandemonium that was 
coming to be. No progress in numbers and the 
arts, no accumulation of inventions and discov- 
eries and sovereignties, could have compensated 
him for the moral decadence that stared him in 
the face. No assurance of forgiveness for his own 
sin could have prevented the iron from entering 



HUMAN BEGINNINGS — ADAM. 45 

his soul as he traced back the wide-branching ruin 
to its root in himself. That knife never grew too 
dull to cut, that saw too dull to tear. And it is 
a lesson never to be forgotten by any of us that, 
although forgiveness will certainly exempt us from 
certain penal consequences of our sin, it may be 
unable to set things back completely into their 
first state ; the storm that has passed will be found 
to have left some durable devastations behind it. 

On with his observations and lamentations for 
nearly a thousand years ! But the longest road 
at last turns. The longest biography comes to its 
last chapter and last verse. The decree has gone 
forth — Adam must get ready to die. From the 
first moment of his sin death has had a secure 
lodgment within him and has kept a firm hand 
on all his heart-strings. He means that his prey 
shall not escape him. At last his grip begins to 
tighten and strain. Snap ! goes a string. There 
is a perceptible faltering in the vital forces. Rest 
rather than activity seems desirable. u Lend me 
your arm, O Seth or Bnos; for somehow I cannot 
do as I once did." And now the end begins to 
appear. Every year tells. His least observant 
neighbors come to notice the change. And now 
hair after hair has whitened till the almond-tree 
flourishes, the grasshopper is a burden, and desire 
fails. In a few days man will go to his long home 
and the mourners go about the streets. And sure 
enough, in a few days the news is in all the primi- 



4-6 LONG AGO. 

tive air that Adam is dead. What, Adam dead ! 
our father, our grandfather, our great-grandfa- 
ther, and so on down to the twelfth generation. 
Yes, it has at last come to that, though it has 
taken so many centuries to lay him low. His life 
has been mortgaged all these years, and now the 
foreclosure has come. Struck with death from 
the day that he ate the forbidden fruit, as God 
saw, he is now dead as man sees. — Thy fate, O 
Adam, must be ours. The child must follow the 
parent. However long we may kill the years, 
the year will at last come that will kill us. Soon- 
er or later we must sleep with our fathers — even 
with that father who had no father to sleep with. 
Dead! People have been saying that of Adam 
for now 5,000 years or so; but is it not time for 
you and me to quit that sort of talk? What 
really was the man we call Adam? Was it so 
much weight of bones and flesh and blood? That 
undoubtedly is dead, has been for many and many 
an age. But that is all. Nothing else belonging 
to our first father was mortal. The spiritual prin- 
ciple that dwelt in the mortal body, that sinned in 
the garden, and, as we trust, repented, went right 
on living after the body-death just as if nothing 
had happened. It is living to-day. Not here, 
not there perhaps, but somewdiere. Is not this 
invisible, undying thing that reigns in the body 
and tells it with irresistible authority where to go 
and what to do, is not this the true man? So we 



HUMAN BEGINNINGS — ADAM. 47 

think, and so it is. This is no new doctrine. If 
not as old as the hills, it is certainly as old as hu- 
manity. Decessit, the ancients wrote over their 
graves. Departed this life, said our fathers. And 
they uttered the better thought of all mankind, 
which has always held to a deathless soul dwell- 
ing in the body as a king in his palace. Who 
cares for the stone and mortar? that is not his 
Majesty. Yes, Adam, authoritatively pronounced 
to be dead, is with equal authority pronounced to 
be alive, to have never for one moment ceased to 
live, to be sure of going on for ever in the same 
unconquerable life. 

Are we not all children of that immortal first 
father? Have we not all come into the world in 
his likeness ? What are our bodies but the 
houses we live in for a while? They will fall 
to pieces as did at last that house which sheltered 
Adam for well nigh a millennium. The moving 
day will come and the tenants will move out-that 
is all. They will not fall to pieces because their 
houses will. They will find a home elsewhere, 
just as evicted Adam did. Where? This is the 
question. 

Behold the brotherhood of men! They all 
have Adam for father. How wide the difference 
in color and feature and capacity and place and 
condition and creed — Jews, Pagans, Moslem?, 
Christians, the white and black, the enlightened 
and savage, kings and subjects, rich and poor, 



48 LONG AGO. 

beautiful and ugly, learned and ignorant, saintly 
and vicious — but yet they are, distasteful as it is 
to many, all brothers. One blood runs in the 
veins of all of us from sunrise round to sunrise 
again. We are bound together not only by the 
ties of a common nature and a common interest, 
but also of a common origin. 

Brethren! Is it possible? What have these 
brothers been doing to one another these thou- 
sands of years ? Bending on one another loving 
eyes, exchanging fraternal salutations, lending 
helping hands, pitying and instructing and saving 
one another? Ask Cain the fratricide. Ask the 
innumerable battlefields of the world. Ask its 
slave-marts. Ask its dungeons and gibbets and 
other penalties to keep men's hands off from the 
lives and property of their fellows, as well as for 
purposes of ambition and cruelty. Ask whole na- 
tions trampled deep into the dust from time im- 
memorial under the hoofs of prancing conquerors 
and hereditary despots. Could one have dreamed 
that all these people were the children of a com- 
mon father? Alas, for the depravity of mankind! 
it has made the human inhuman; it has turned 
men into fiends. Sin is against nature! Beinof 
brothers, we should compassionate and help one 
another with both hands. Yonder destitute one 
should see a willing foot hastening to his relief. 
Yonder sorrow-stricken one should see the tear of 
sympathy and hear the voice of consolation. 



HUMAN BEGINNINGS — ADAM. 49 

Yonder victim of vice is to be sought out and per- 
suaded back to the paths of virtue. Yonder lands 
dark with unbelief or heathenism should be 
prayed for, given for, labored for, and, if need be, 
suffered for. What less should brothers do? 
What they have done is scored too deeply into 
the world's history to escape either our memories 
or our shudders. 

Behold the twofold aspect of God! While 
Adam remained obedient a face of love was 
turned towards him; as soon as he fell he saw a 
face of wrath. O blissful garden! never was there 
another such home beneath the stars; for never 
elsewhere had human home so noble an occupant. 
They fitted each other like holiness and happiness. 
The founder of nations, immortal in healthful 
and splendid manhood, exempt from all wearing 
cares and toils, furnished with heavenly beings, 
from Kve upward, as daily companions, with 
not a thought or feeling awry from duty — this 
human gem in a fit setting of shining circumstan- 
ces — surely God is nothing but love! 

But alas, that eating of the forbidden fruit! It 
was a small thing in bulk, but small in nothing 
else. God saw in it a change of base, a change 
of character, a principle of disobedience which if 
allowed would make Him throneless and his uni- 
verse a waste. So he turned away his face of 
love from the sinner and turned on him a face of 
wrath — of corrugated iron. The Father became a 

Long A, o. 't 



50 LONG AGO. 

Judge. At his frown the bowers of Eden with- 
ered. The palace cast out the king. He went 
forth into a smitten world to wring out of it a 
living by the sweat of his brow, the sweat of his 
thought, and the sweat of his heart. A tide of 
vexatious cares set up into even all the smallest 
creeks and estuaries of his life. Fears of all sorts 
cross his path in every direction and haunt his 
steps day and night with threatening eyes. Re- 
morse grimly promises never to forsake him. 
Every now and then pain predicts death. Even 
hope, blessed hope, the last friend to forsake man, 
as she tries with tearful eye to look beyond the 
grave, and goes out, dovelike, on the limitless 
ocean, is able to return with only a single olive 
leaf to sustain the sinking heart — " The seed of 
the woman shall bruise the serpent's head." Be- 
hold the severity as well as the goodness of God: 
here the face of wrath, there the face of love. 

Has He changed — He who is the same yester- 
day, to-day, and for ever? Has he not now 
brightness for the good and darkness for the bad, 
even as of old ? Will it not pay to please him 
and cost us much to displease him? Let every 
man consider whether Adam's descendants can- 
not profit from Adam's experience. Doubtless 
it was put on record for our admonition on whom 
the ends of the world have come. 



II. NEW FOUNDATIONS. 



NOAH 



'The Refugee, 



NEW FOUNDATIONS — NOAH. 53 



II NEW FOUNDATIONS— NOAH. 

About one hundred years after the death of 
Adain, but yet nine generations distant from him, 
was born a man destined to found the human 
race anew. 

Our common biography is apt to state not 
only the exact time when its subject was born, 
but also the exact place where. Thus: "Sir Isaac 
Newton was born in Woolsthorpe, Lincolnshire, 
England, on the 25th day of December, 1642." 
The Bible does not always conform to this cus- 
tom. For example, it tells us nothing about the 
birthplace of Noah — whether it was near the 
original garden or was at some remote spot to 
which in the course of a thousand years the 
sons of Adam had strayed. But does it really 
matter ? 

We naturally like to know as much as possi- 
ble about the early years and circumstances of 
eminent men. Of what stock did they come? 
Who were their parents? What sort of mothers 
and home training did they have? At the outset 
were they comely or homely, bright or dull, ami- 
able or otherwise? if any light can be had on 
such matters it is welcomed. But it often hap- 
pens that our curiosity has to go unsatisfied — • 



54 LONG AGO. 

especially in the case of men belonging to remote 
times. Who knows anything to speak of about 
the early years of Pythagoras or Plato or Aristotle? 
Whether we are losers by this it were hard to say. 
It may be that we should be neither wiser nor 
better for knowing more of these men than we do. 
The world has not room enough in it for unlim- 
ited details about any man, however eminent. 
Neither our lives nor our memories are long 
enough for them. There must be a sifting. No 
doubt time often winnows wisely, and hands 
down to us only what is fittest to survive. 

In the case of the Scripture narratives this 
whole matter is settled for us by divine wisdom. 
What the Bible does not tell us about the early 
days of Noah it is not worth our while to know. 
And it tells us scarcely anything about the first 
500 years of his life. That he was the son of 
Lamech, the great-grandson of saintly Enoch, and 
in the line of Seth, Adam's son; that as a mem- 
ber of this comparatively godly line, and as abut- 
ting so hard on the time of Adam himself, he must 
have been in contact with considerable religious 
information and good influence, is evident. But 
it is also evident he must have fallen in with very 
unwholesome influences; for it is recorded that 
while he was yet in middle life the entire public 
had reached such an extreme of audacious and in- 
tolerable wickedness as even the merciful heavens 
could no longer tolerate. This point was not 



NEW FOUNDATIONS — NOAH. 55 

reached in a moment or in a generation. It was 
not far off while Noah was still a child. 

And yet about the first glimpse we get of 
Noah as a man shows not merely a good man, 
but a very good man — one just and perfect in his 
generation and who walked with God! This is a 
grand certificate of character, considering that it 
is given by Him who searches the heart. Human 
estimates of a man are likely to stop at mere sur- 
face appearance, but the divine estimate goes to 
the heart of things, and one can rest his whole 
weight upon it. Yes, beyond a doubt, Noah was 
a grandly good man. So remarkable was his vir- 
tue that when God wished to express in the most 
forcible manner the inflexibility of his purpose to 
punish Israel for its sin he declared, "Though 
these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in 
it, they should deliver only their own souls by 
their righteousness." It appears that among the 
Old Testament worthies none stood higher in the 
divine favor than these elect three. 

Consider the circumstances under which this 
high character in Noah was formed. When the 
curtain first rises on his manhood we see a single 
green spot in the midst of a universal desert. 
Outside of his own family there was not a good 
man living in all the round world. Even the de^ 
scendants of saintly Enoch, including his own 
brothers and sisters, had become apostate. "All 
flesh had corrupted his way. 1 ' "Every imagina- 



5^ LONG AGO. 

tion of the thoughts of his heart was only evil 
continually." What a state of things! It shout- 
ed in the ear of divine justice. So befouled and 
leprous had the originally white robe become, 
what could be done with it but to bury it entire ! 
Let it be buried in a grave of waters some miles 
deep, said heaven. Why, there is not a solitary 
praying family between the poles for Noah to 
associate with, not one with whom he can ex- 
change a congenial religious thought, not one 
from whom he can get the least help in the right 
path. Instead of help it was all hindrance. The 
opinions, the talk, the example about him were all 
those of aggressively wicked men. They tempted 
him, they argued with him, they laughed and they 
scoffed, they made his way in every right direction 
as rough, and toilsome as possible. He was in the 
condition of a man around whom are heaped up 
vast masses of putrescent matter. The whole air 
is poisoned. If under such circumstances he does 
not sicken and die and become as putrescent and 
offensive as his surroundings, it is because his 
health is exceedingly robust and the disinfectants 
he uses are exceedingly powerful. That Noah be- 
came a regenerate man, established a first-class 
religious character, and maintained it unimpaired, 
despite such an environment, shows him to have 
possessed a wonderful amount of spiritual vitality 
and force, of massive firmness and weight of prin- 
ciple. The oak that has stood and flourished 



NEW FOUNDATIONS — NOAH. $J 

against the blasts of 500 roaring winters has a right 
to be considered a mighty wrestler. Noah, who 
stood and nourished century after century, not 
only without a word of sympathy and encourage- 
ment from any human quarter, but with all such 
quarters actively against him, must have been a 
mighty wrestler. Few or no battlefields have 
shown such firmness, such courage, such a dy- 
namic of militant resources, as he displayed. We 
salute thee, O knightly Noah! It makes one 
strong even to think of thee, O hero! The men 
of thy times may have called thee a weakling, but 
in God's sight thou art stouter and loftier than 
the Himalayas, O thou man of majestic stamina 
and sublime resisting power! 

The quality of Noah is still further emphasized 
by the fact that he did not content himself with 
merely standing firm in his religion. One who 
acts only on the defensive confesses weakness. 
One who aims only at holding his ground is not 
the best style of a good man, if he is a good man 
at all. Aggressiveness belongs to the make-up of 
first-class soldiers of all sorts, not excepting that 
sort of soldier whom we call a saint. He lives in 
a besieged city, it is true, and he must be vigilant 
in self-defence; but if he really has great courage 
and resources he will be ashamed not to make 
frequent sallies into the outlying territory where 
homes and harvests are being ravaged. Noah 
was so good a soldier of the Most High that he 



58 LONG AGO. 

became a preacher of righteousness. He tried to 
reclaim those arrant sinners who shocked both 
him and the heavens. Their profanity, their 
Sabbath-breaking, their prayerlessness, their prof- 
ligacy, their idolatry he expostulated with, warned 
against, entreated against, faithfully rebuked. He 
did this for at least one hundred and twenty years, 
probably much longer. And he did it without 
the least encouragement in the way of success. 
Not a soul seems to have been won during all that 
long and faithful ministry. And yet he kept to 
his preaching as well as to his practising just as 
firmly as if he had gained a convert at every word 
and at every stroke. The God-forsaking race 
should not become God-forsaken if he could help 
it. This was sublime. This was after the man- 
ner of God, the great Striven Behold the true 
sort of minister, the true sort of Christian — one 
who can do his duty at all costs and in face of all 
discouragements, even that of manifest failure, 
the worst of all discouragements. Most good 
men can endure anything better than this. If 
they can stand this furnace they are the finest 
gold that ever came out of Ophir. Noah stood it. 
No wonder that he found favor with God. 

The great and majestic goodness of the patri- 
arch was not reached at a leap. It was a growth, 
probably a slow one — first the blade, then the ear, 
afterward the full corn in the ear. It began in 
conversion, when for the first time he intelligently 



NEW FOUNDATIONS — NOAH. 59 

and conclusively chose that religious life which 
he so came to adorn. After conversion he grew 
in grace by the use of means of grace, just as 
Christians now do. What means of grace did 
Noah have? He certainly had prayer; that lad- 
der between earth and heaven has always been 
standing. Almost as certainly he had sacred tra- 
ditions, oral or written, perhaps both; for Adam 
had only just died and Enoch only just ascended; 
and from these full fountains streams of sanctify- 
ing truth, serving the purpose of our Scriptures, 
must have descended into Noah's times. Be- 
sides, the general public of those times could not 
have been so enormously wicked as we are as- 
sured it was unless great light had been abroad. 
Great guilt implies great knowledge. Only of 
them to whom much is given is much required. It 
was because the antediluvians knew fundamental 
religious truth so well that such an indignant ac- 
count of them is given in the Scriptures. Also, 
Noah enjoyed a means of grace special to himself, 
namely, direct communications from God by an- 
gels or visions or divine voices, one or all. The 
narrative shows that he was having such commu- 
nications at the time when the curtain first fairly 
rises upon him, assuring him that he had found 
favor with God and that destruction was prepar- 
ing for all families besides his own. He may 
have had like direct intercourse with heaven 
many times before. This must have been to him 



Go LONG AGO. 

a means of grace. And of course he had what no 
good man ever fails to have, that silent ministry 
of the Holy Spirit and of providence which is so 
potent a factor in our own time in helping to all 
that is good. By such means, against argument, 
against scoff, against blandishments, against vex- 
ations and harassments innumerable, against the 
quiet seductions of a public example that was un- 
mixedly corrupt, he stood like some broad-based 
pyramid from century to century without falter- 
ing; also like that pyramid when in process of con- 
struction, getting completer and loftier and nearer 
to heaven with every passing year. It must have 
been so. So run the laws of nature. 

Of course that great, immovable, ever-growing 
saint found great favor with God. Of course those 
grossly corrupt contemporaries of his were as a 
smoke in the nostrils of Jehovah. How could it 
be otherwise? And Jehovah said, " Limit must 
be set to this horrible depravity. If these wicked 
men cannot be brought to mend their ways they 
must be swept from the earth which they pollute. 
They shall have a time of grace. It shall be long, 
even one hundred and twenty years; and during 
this long respite Noah shall warn and the Spirit 
shall strive, and nobody shall be able to say that 
I have not been long-su fieri ng, though at last I 
proceed to extremities; for if the world will not 
turn it shall drown. Only Noah and his family 
shall escape." 



NEW FOUNDATIONS — NOAH. 6 1 

Noah was notified of the divine purpose. He 
was to labor with his generation in two ways — by 
preaching words and by preaching deeds. While 
warning the sinners with his lips of the doom to 
which they were tending, his hands should warn 
them by steadily carrying forward the building of 
an ark. To this double preaching he faithfully 
addressed himself. He preached and he prac- 
tised, as ministers are bound to do now. Day 
after day and year after year the sound of axe and 
hammer mingled with the warning tones of the 
preacher of righteousness. Many a laugh and 
sneer he had to encounter. Many an insulting 
word and look and gesture w T ere shot at the fool 
or the madman. Some stopped their ears and 
some turned to him ears of stone. "What is it 
that this babbler says? n And some perhaps lis- 
tened with polite attention and even with a de- 
gree of apprehension, as with Oriental fervor and 
open-browed sincerity and the inspiration of a 
prophet he discharged among them his threaten- 
ing ministry. But not a soul heard to any good 
purpose. Some no doubt laid hold of the long- 
suffering of God to confirm themselves in their 
impiety. As year after year and decade after de- 
cade passed and all things continued as they were, 
the earth just as green, the sky just as blue, the 
harvests just as heavy, they boldly came to the 
conclusion that what was so long in coining would 
never arrive. " Because sentence against an evil 



62 LONG AGO. 

work is not executed speedily, therefore the hearts 
of the sons of men are fully set in them to do 
evil." True, the ark was not yet finished; true, 
the patriarch seemed as confident and urgent as 
ever; but these were things with which they had 
gradually become as familiar as with the rising of 
the sun. So they went on boldly in the old evil 
ruts. They did eat, they drank, they married 
wives, they were given in marriage, until the day — 
What day? Why, the very day when the ark 
was finished and the 120 years of probation had 
expired. Then suddenly the sound of preaching 
hammers and axes ceased. Ceased, too, the 
preaching voice. The unwonted silence was it- 
self disturbing. What now ? One by one neigh- 
bors gradually gather in little groups on the high 
grounds that command a view of the silent ark. 
They talk about the matter. Some have their 
jests and bravado ; others try hard to conceal the 
apprehensions which the consciousness of guilt 
ever inspires. All feel that the crucial day is 
come. Now they will know the truth of the 
matter. Now they will see whether the world is 
to be drowned or not. Every now and then they 
cast furtive glances at the sky. Their ears are 
furtively alert for any strange sound, their eyes 
for any strange sight. Who are those people 
yonder approaching the ark? One, two, three — 
yes, there are eight of them. They must be 
Noah and his family. Going to embark, are 



NEW FOUNDATIONS — NOAH. 63 

they? Well, it does look as if they believe what 
they have been saying; they are really entering. 
While the spectators are thus gazing and query- 
ing they become vaguely aware that the whole 
region around is getting alive with motion. 
Along the air the birds fall into line and advance 
towards the ark : along the earth all kinds of walk- 
ing and creeping animals, forgetful of mutual 
fear and repugnances, put themselves into orderly 
procession and stream along by twos in the same 
direction. Pair after pair disappear within the 
structure. Now the last have entered. The door 
closes. The world before the Flood and the 
world after the Flood have looked on each other 
for the last time. 

No more merriment and scoff among those on- 
lookers. And what is amazement at first ripens 
fast into open terror — especially when they come 
to notice that while they have been watching the 
earth the sky has become overcast. Not a bit of 
blue can be seen. Every moment the air gets 
duskier. Now soon it is black — and such a black- 
ness ! Look ! There is a gleam of lightning. 
Hark ! there is a muttering of thunder. Mean- 
while the groups have become crowded : they 
blacken all the high grounds and high buildings; 
they sway to and fro with excitement like the 
waves of the sea when the tempest begins to 
breathe upon it; cries of consternation that are 
full of tragedy rend the darkness on every hand. 



64 LONG AGO. 

Sinners at last have come to believe — but alas ! 
have come to believe after the old, old way, that 
is, when it is too late. Is not the door of the ark 
closed? Could the structure contain the thou- 
sandth part of the people? 

There is hurrying from the lowlands to the 
hills. Men must get themselves as near to the 
heavens as possible. And yet they shrink from 
getting nearer, so angry and threatening those 
heavens are now looking. How the lightnings 
flash ! How the thunders peal ! Was that a drop 
of rain? They cannot see, it is so dark, but soon 
they hear a patter on the stones and the roofs; the 
rising wind beats great scattered drops into their 
faces. Faster and faster — at last it is as if the 
whole firmament were turning to water. A crash ! 
Have the solid foundations of the earth been dealt 
a staggering blow by an almighty hand? Up 
pour waters from beneath to meet the waters from 
above. Rivers but just now quietly subterranean 
leap madly out of the rifted strata and sweep the 
surface in every direction. Soon all the lowlands 
are covered. The hungry waters pursue the fugi- 
tives up the hills. Eminence after eminence 
loaded with shrieking crowds is swallowed up. 
Still up pour the waters as if they never would 
stop. Still up pour the waters as if there were no 
end to them. Go up higher, ye frantic wretches, 
by turns praying and blaspheming ! Do you 
not see that the waters are always rising, that all 



NEW FOUNDATIONS — NOAH. 65 

the other high places are covered, that crowd af- 
ter crowd had been devoured until you only are 
left ! Hurry, I say, those of you who can, up this 
tall mountain's side; stand not on the order of 
your going ; trample on one another in your haste 
to live. Does not the adversary within tell you 
that all a man hath he will give for his life -even 
his neighbors and friends, his parents and wife 
and children? So trample them down in your 
climbing. Higher still and still higher — faster, I 
say ; do you not see that the open-mouthed deep 
is gaining on you? The monster is lapping your 
last footprint; leap as fast as you can from rock 
to rock till the poor few of you who are left stand 
on this highest peak of all. Oh, what an out- 
spread of waters! The vales have all disappeared. 
The hills are all covered. Nothing remains but 
this solitary peak — and yonder ark silently float- 
ing. Oh, that ark, that neglected, ridiculed ark ! 
Would that we were within it ! Would that we 
had listened to that warning voice and had pre- 
pared an ark for ourselves ! But what avail lam- 
entations? The day of grace is over. It was 
long, it was recklessly abused, and now it is gone 
beyond recall. A few moments more, a few mo- 
ments of dreadful suspense as the hunting waters 
creep up to feet, creep up to waist, creep up to 
throat — a moment more and all is over. With 
one loud despairing cry the last sinners disap- 
pear. 



66 



LONG AGO. 



The ark with its living freight floated safely 
above a dead world. In due time it settled on 
one of the mountains of Armenia. Noah looked 
forth and saw the dripping peaks and intervening 
waters overhung by the wondrous bow which from 
that time forward should promise that a like 
Flood should never again visit the earth. 

As soon as the retreating waters allowed the 
patriarch went forth into the cleansed and silent 
earth to found the race anew. He began with 
thanking God for his great deliverance, as all 
delivered people should do. He set up the new 
order of things as all should begin their enter- 
prises, whether the founding of a state or the 
founding of a family or the founding of a profes- 
sion, by an act of religious worship. He built an 
altar to the Lord. 

For the second time the whole earth was 
owned by one man. Was he the happier for such 
a magnificent farm ? For Noah became a farmer. 
What else could he be ? For three hundred and 
fifty years longer he led his quiet life and saw his 
children spreading out from him in every direc- 
tion, even as Adam had done; and, alas ! as Adam 
had done, saw them settling away from the ser- 
vice of God. Ah, what a lamentable gravitation 
belongs to human nature ! Generation followed 
generation. The Flood survived as a fact in their 
memories and traditions, but it did not survive as 
a restraining power. Man lapsed after a while 



NEW FOUNDATIONS — NOAH. 67 

far back into the old antediluvian ways, just as 
we now see smitten families (terribly smitten 
often) go on after a little as badly as ever. How 
many unsanctified trials there are in our own 

day! 

That Noah, the steadfast preacher of right- 
eousness for at least more than a century, was 
silent and acquiescent during this religious de- 
cline is not to be supposed. One who has stood 
so long will stand for ever. One who has been a 
protestant so long will protest to the end. So we 
must think of the patriarch as confronting and 
resolutely breasting the evil ways of his descend- 
ants as long as he lived. And when, at the age 
of nine hundred and fifty years, he died (for every 
biography must end in a death) the man who at 
the opening of his history was pronounced a good 
man and a just was doubtless not only a good man 
still, but one whose goodness had been greatly 
emphasized by his having for so many additional 
years fought a good fight. 

In after ages the Romans worshipped a god 
with two faces. But Noah had worshipped such 
a God long before, the Jehovah one of whose faces 
is mercy and the other justice. He was so merci- 
ful that he labored with the antediluvians for 
more than a century, both by the warning words 
of Noah and by that great object-lesson the ark, 
as it slowly grew and loudly preached under the 
hands of the preaching prophet. And though the 



68 LONG AGO. 

wickedness continued high-handed to a miracle 
and not a soul changed its defiant course, still he 
held firm to his forbearing and expostulating atti- 
tude, until men thought that what had lasted so 
long would last for ever. 

But justice has its rights as well as mercy. 
There was no flinching on the part of heaven 
from extreme measures when the hour for them 
had struck. After that prayers and tears were 
wasted. If the tears of the reprobates had been 
enough of themselves to make a deluge it would 
have made no difference. The door was closed. 
The Father gave place to the Magistrate; the long- 
suspended sword fell and left the earth a solitude. 
Let men not forget what sort of a God they have 
to deal with, nor because sentence against an evil 
work is not executed speedily conclude that it 
will not be executed at all. 

Also, let those who are always asking what 
men will think and say and do about it, and who 
feel quite easy in any course if they find it taken 
by great numbers and especially by a great major- 
ity, let such people realize that it is not always 
safe to believe and act with the multitude, how- 
ever large. The examples were overwhelmingly 
against Noah. Nobody countenanced his faith or 
his works. He could not get a single indorse- 
ment on his paper. Unrighteousness had all the 
votes. And yet it proved a most disastrous vo- 
ting. The lesson is, Go not with the multitude 



NEW FOUNDATIONS — NOAH. 69 

to do evil. Though the many become the whole, 
go not with them. Though all break the Sab- 
bath, though all neglect the sanctuary, though all 
cast off fear and prayer and faith, though all apos- 
tatize, go not with them. They are going to 
death. There is neither safety nor understanding 
against the Lord. 

Is it true that a faithful preaching of the gos- 
pel in a community will always command suc- 
cess ? Was it successful in every place where the 
apostles preached it? Did not Christ's instruc- 
tions to the Seventy contemplate that there would 
be some places visited by them against which they 
would have to shake off the dust of their feet as 
beinor incorrigible ? Did not even the Master 
himself find a place that would not receive him ? 
Examples of the same sort have, no doubt, been 
known from the beginning; but the most striking 
example of all is the complete failure of Noah's 
ministry among the antediluvians. Not a man of 
them was converted. Noah testified faithfully, I 
suppose forcibly; his testimony was reinforced by 
the striving Spirit and as many striving conscien- 
ces as there were sinners, and yet not a man out- 
side of Noah's household was saved. The seed fell 
on the hard, trampled wayside and " the birds 
came and devoured it up." And there are com- 
munities now in which Christian labor is thrown 
away. Are there not reprobate places as well as 
reprobate persons — Chorazins and Bethsaidas 



70 LONG AGO. 

which repent not even though Christ himself 
is the preacher and the worker ? 

Man can stand firmly against any amount of 
bad influences from without. "My environment 
is bad," says one. "I am discouraged. Religion 
is weak in this community. Some of its friends 
are merely nominal, and worse can be said of 
others. My neighbors are all indifferent or a 
godless people, and some are bitter opposers. As 
to religious fellowship, I have absolutely none. 
These are very unfavorable circumstances.' , 
Yes, but religion has managed to maintain itself 
and even to flourish under worse conditions. 
Noah's conditions were worse. What religious 
fellowship had he ? What neighbors helped him 
by word or example ? Who prayed for him or 
with him? The whole public, away to the hori- 
zon, was solidly in arms against him. He was a 
last uncaptured stronghold in the heart of the 
enemy's country, one to which siege was laid 
night and day. But he stood stoutly. He kept 
his ground — and more. Doubtless he grew 
stronger by successful battle. Why cannot we? 
Is the solitary Christian in some frontier settle- 
ment obliged to give in to the general unbelief 
and demoralization? Let him be in his place 
what Noah was in his. Why should not religion 
have her heroes as well as war? Why should 
not the cause of Christ have its forlorn hope as 
well as other causes? Pluck up heart, there- 



NEW FOUNDATIONS — NOAH. 71 

fore, hermit; play the man against all odds; 
count not the number of the enemy. Much less 
should he be downcast and faint of heart who can- 
not claim that his religion is alone in the w T orld, 
but only that it is in the minority, perhaps only 
that it has not so large a support from his sur- 
roundings as he would like. Let him remember 
that Noah had far less than himself, and take 
courage from the magnificence of that ancient ex- 
ample. God and he should be a sufficient major- 
ity anywhere. Let him put into his religion a 
touch of the old Noachian sublime dauntlessness. 



III. A CHOSEN GENERATION. 



ABRAHAM 
The ELmi grant. 



ABRAHAM. 75 



III. ABRAHAM. 

ChaulEa was the birthplace of astronomy. 
In its pure air the heavenly bodies shone with 
special brilliancy; and the pastoral occupation of 
the people in that genial climate kept them much 
under the open sky both day and night. So 
the Chaldseans were the first to observe and put 
together the surface-facts about the stars. But, 
unfortunately, they did not stop here, but pro- 
ceeded to give divine honors to the shining orbs. 
Nature herself became a screen to hide her Maker 
from view — as too often happens in our own 
times and in a far worse degree than in Chaldaea; 
for it is worse to be altogether without a God 
than it is to worship the sun and moon and stars. 

In the midst of the Chaldaean star- worshippers 
Abram was born, two years after the death of 
Noah. His neighbors and even his kindred were 
idolaters. With idolatry as a public example, 
and an idolatrous training, Abram' s career began 
very unpromisingly. But somehow, in spite of 
these grave disadvantages, he found his way to 
the one God and to a cordial service of Him. 
Perhaps he fell in with some monotheistic sage. 
Perhaps the stars themselves were his teachers ; 



J 6 LONG AGO. 

and he was like here and there an astronomer 
now whose thoughts use the stars as shining step- 
ping-stones by which to ascend to their still more 
shining Maker. Very likely the Chaldseans of 
that period combined the worship of other gods 
with that of Jehovah, as was done among the 
later Romans until they discovered that if they 
allowed Jehovah a place in their Pantheon they 
would soon have no Pantheon left. Whatever 
the way in which Abram came to know and ex- 
clusively to serve the one true God, it was thor- 
oughly done. His was a solid conversion. His 
faith in God was of that robust, practical, thor- 
ough-going sort which is apt to come from hav- 
ing to fight its way against the general example: 
an encouragement to all whose religious circum- 
stances are unfavorable. It seems that heredity 
and bad training and a bad public example may 
all be triumphed over; they often are now. Only 
the battle to be fought was harder then. It was 
greatly to the credit of Abram that he fought that 
harder battle and gained it. 

God, who sees all things, saw that great victory 
in Ur of the Chaldees. No doubt He helped to 
gain it. There never yet was a moral struggle 
to which the good God was not a party, though 
he makes no noise about it when he brings up his 
reinforcements on the right side. And when 
victory was won by the combined forces, and 
Abram stood out from his nation and kindred as 



ABRAHAM. Jf 

the one protestant against polytheism, the heart 
of his great Ally went out warmly towards him 
and said, " Him who confesses me will I confess. 
He shall found for me a chosen nation. I will 
give him and his descendants one of the choicest 
lands beneath the sun ; I will make special reve- 
lations to them, and take them into closer relations 
with myself than will be granted to any other 
people ; and from them shall come the great 
Deliverer." 

To carry out this design it was necessary that 
there should be an emigration. It was not best 
that Abram should continue amid the bad sur- 
roundings of his native place; partly for the 
same reason, perhaps, that it is best for Christians 
now to "come out from the world and be sepa- 
rate" in a distinct church organization ; it helps 
purity, growth, and usefulness. We notice that 
often the transfer of a young person whose envi- 
ronment is bad to a new place is a great religious 
help to him. He turns over a new leaf. He 
makes a new start. Among new scenes and peo- 
ple he finds it easier to lead a new life. So it 
may have been with Abram. He must emigrate. 
He must become a Pilgrim Father. For reli- 
gion's sake, the ship of the desert must become 
his " May flower" to carry him far away into new 
regions, there to flourish into a great and privi- 
leged nation. 

So one day God appeared to him in some con- 



yS LONG AGO. 

vincing way and said, u Get thee out of thy 
country and from thy kindred and from thy fa- 
ther's house unto a land that I will show thee." 
Of course to a man of Abram's stamp there was 
only one thing to be done : obedience was the 
word, and prompt obedience at that. Hardships 
were not to be thought of when God had told 
him what to do. He was now sixty years old, 
and his roots had struck down deep into his na- 
tive soil. And then where was he to go ? Not 
even the direction of his journey had been given 
him. Whether, when he should be ready to 
start, he would be called to go north or south, 
east or west, he did not know. This is a speci- 
men of God's way of dealing with all of us. In 
the matter of light on our course in life we have 
to live from hand to mouth. Our path is not 
mapped out to us far ahead. Daily guidance 
comes with daily needs. Our business is to get 
ready to start, lay our hand in His, and then 
begin to move as we feel drawn. 

This was what Abram did. No doubt it would 
have been pleasant to him to have a little more 
light to begin upon; but he was already too good 
a soldier of God to insist on knowing his destina- 
tion, or the way towards it. His faith was bright; 
and that torch should for the present serve as a 
substitute for the sun. He promptly set about his 
preparations. It was to be a final departure. He 
must get together all his belongings. Who would 



ABRAHAM. 79 

£0 with him ? Would not his aged father Terah 
and his brother Nahor and his nephew Lot? He 
must talk the matter over with them, and, if pos- 
sible, persuade them to cast in their lot with him 
and his fortunes. He was successful. All con- 
cluded to join him. And when the farewells were 
all said, and flocks and herds put in marching 
order, and the camels all loaded, Abram discovered 
that he was to move westward. So westward he 
went. And whenever he met a caravan and ex- 
changed salutations, and was asked u Whither 
bound?" all he could say was " A little farther," 
or " I do not know." Slowly, as the tender ani- 
mals could go, he moved on from tent-pitching to 
tent-pitching until he came to Haran in Mesopo- 
tamia. "Linger here for awhile," said the di- 
vine voice from without or from within, "linger 
here till I say go on." He lingered for fifteen 
years. For fifteen years providence was Fabius 
Cunctator. Old age was at hand, was come: the 
region about Haran was comparatively barren 
and could hardly be the place meant for him: why 
then this delay? Faith could only say, "The 
Lord knows best; haste sometimes makes waste; 
when it is best to move on He will tell me. Bide 
his time, O soul." And that time was delayed 
till his father Terah was dead, till his brother Na- 
hor had made up his mind to settle in Haran, and 
thus till he was free to go forth alone to his des- 
tiny. Then he heard the voice again, calling 



80 LONG AGO. 

him still westward. And westward he went. He 
found his way across the Euphrates, he slowly 
wormed along from water to water, from pasture 
to pasture, across the upper end of the great 
Syrian desert, till he came to Canaan. Here the 
voice came to him again, telling him that his 
journey was at last finished. This was the prom- 
ised land, the land which he should occupy and 
his descendants in due time should possess — the 
land and race to be privileged above all others. 

With what eager eyes the patriarch must have 
looked about him as he moved southward through 
the new country ! God had not told him any- 
thing about its quality. He must trust for that. 
So when he was sure that he had reached his des- 
tination he was all curiosity. "What sort of a 
land is this which has been given to me and mine, 
and which it has cost me so much pains to reach ? 
Is it fair, is it fertile, is it well- wooded, well- 
watered, and genial in climate ? How does it com- 
pare with the country I have left ?' ' His examina- 
tion must have been satisfactory. Canaan was the 
glory of all lands — was not the miserable country 
which travellers now see, wasted by war and bad 
government and bad husbandry, stripped of its 
trees and running waters, for ages neglected and 
abused in the general insecurity of person and 
property. 

The land was already somewhat settled. Here 
and there were small towns; but the great coun- 



ABRAHAM. 8 1 

try-side was as yet mostly unappropriated. So 
Abram had a plenty of room for his flocks and 
herds, and, what he valued still more, a plenty 
of room for his religion. He may be said to have 
taken possession of the land in the name of the 
Lord. Wherever his business called him he set 
up an altar. The fathers of New England copied 
his example in their new land; they planted no 
colony, advanced to no new district even as ex- 
plorers, without a plenty of altars and prayers. 
The sons of New England too often, alas, neglect 
to copy that ancient example when they go forth to 
new Western homes. I am ashamed of them — ■ 
those renegades who leave their altars and religion 
behind them. I am proud of that stable good 
man whom it is almost time to call Abraham, who 
carried his religion with him wherever he emigra- 
ted. The religion that does not bear transplant- 
ing is a poor affair. That of Abraham bore it be- 
cause it was genuine and had no end of healthy 
roots. 

The religion of Abraham did not hurt his bus- 
iness. It is the devil that tells any man that, in 
order to succeed in business, he must relax the 
strictness of religious principle, must scant his 
altars and prayers, and dispense with a strict in- 
terpretation of the Ten Commandments. Not- 
withstanding Abraham was so pious a man, never 
scanting worship, never robbing caravans, never 
misrepresenting and overreaching when he bought 



82 LONG AGO. 

and sold, always hospitable as an Arab, he grew 
rich. I said " notwithstanding." I spoke as 
some men think. I should have said that Abra- 
ham grew rich because of his piety. His piety 
was a friend at court. It opened the treasury of 
Him to whom it is said, ' ' Riches and honor come 
of thee." His servant Kliezer stated the case 
rightly when he said, "The L,ord hath blessed my 
master greatly, and he is become great; and He 
hath given him nocks and herds and silver and 
gold and men-servants and maid-servants and 
camels and asses." No, Abraham's piety did not 
hinder his business; it helped it. His prosperity 
was sent him by the great Disposer as a testimony 
to his good conduct — as Job's double riches were. 
If he had taken to selling quack medicines, or 
advertising his cattle after a current manner, or 
stealing a railroad or repudiating State bonds, I 
suppose he would not have been half as successful, 
as he certainly would not have been a thousandth 
part as good. He was one of the few men whom 
riches do not harm. They did not lessen his faith, 
did not secularize his piety, did not make a miser 
or a prodigal of him, did not puff him up, as they 
did Nebuchadnezzar and many another man, to 
glorify himself and despise his fellows and forget 
his God. 

In course of time the flocks and herds of Abra- 
ham and Lot became so numerous that the two 
men could not keep together without danger of a 



ABRAHAM. 83 

collision of interests. It was necessary to part 
company in the interest of peace and friendliness. 
Now came an opportunity for magnanimity. 
There was much to choose between different dis- 
tricts in point of adaptation to pastoral purposes. 
1 ' Lot shall have his choice, ' ' said the generous 
uncle. Lot ought to have been ashamed to take 
it, at least without a protest. It was a very un- 
handsome thing to do; but he did it, aud grasped 
the fertile vale of Siddim, which in those days 
was as the garden of the Lord. As it was, the 
generous Abraham got more good out of the 
transaction than did the grasping Lot. Abraham 
got out of it a still larger soul, and went back to 
his tent a taller and broader man than he was 
when he left it an hour before. And Lot went 
back to his tent a smaller man, if a richer, than 
he came forth. Also, he soon found that his self- 
ish choice was as mistaken as it was mean. 

He hardly had time to get fairly settled in his 
new quarters before several petty kings from the 
east made a foray into the valley, sacked its towns, 
aud carried off him and his family and all their 
possessions. Bad news travelled quickly in the 
old days as well as now, and was not long in find- 
ing its way to the camp of Abraham. Now Abra- 
ham was a shepherd and not a sheep. It was not 
his vocation in life to fight; but he had valor and 
energy and decision and — he lived before the days 
of George Fox. He promptly armed a part of his 



84 LONG AGO. 

great household of servants, three hundred and 
eighteen in number, cried, "Abraham to the 
rescue! 1 ' and started in pursuit. He overtook 
the enemy near Damascus, came upon them sud- 
denly by night, completely routed them, and 
came back with all their spoil of persons and 
goods, Lot and his belongings included. And 
the king of Sodom went forth to meet the extem- 
porized warrior and congratulate him. u Do you 
keep the goods," said he; "only give me my 
people whom you have rescued." Thus spake 
the king in a kingly way, but the patriarch knew 
how to give as kingly an answer. " I have lifted 
up my hand to the Most High God, the possessor 
of heaven and earth, that I will not take from a 
thread to a shoe-latchet." So Siddim and Lot 
got back their entire property — thanks to the gen- 
erosity of Abraham. But there was other plunder 
recovered that did not belong to Siddim; and a 
tenth of this he gave to Melchizedek, king of Sa- 
lem and priest of God, as a tribute due to religion. 
If he did well to give to the type of Christ the 
tenth of the income from his victory, we would 
do well to give at least as much of our gains to 
Christ himself. 

Theophanies we call them — sensible appear- 
ances of Deity, or the equivalent of these in 
dreams, visions, or inward voices which bring 
their own evidence with them. Abraham had 
several of these after his arrival in Canaan, 



ABRAHAM. 85 

notably one in which God was more explicit 
and full in his predictions and promises than ever 
before, and in which he bound himself to the pa- 
triarch w 7 ith the obligations of a formal covenant. 
At another time He renewed this covenant, ap- 
pointed the rite of circumcision as its seal, and 
promised him within a year a son whose name 
should be Isaac and in whose line the chosen na- 
tion should be reckoned. There w T as much to ob- 
ject to this on natural grounds. But Abraham 
asked for no explanations. It was enough for 
him that God had said it. He promptly believed 
and promptly obeyed. The very same day he had 
all the males in his household circumcised. This 
ready, obedient faith of his was counted for right- 
eousness. It was righteousness. It was wisdom. 
Must God be all the while giving account of him- 
self to his creature? Must nothing be taken on 
trust? Must the Most High justify all his com- 
mands at the bar of human reason before they be- 
come binding? That w 7 ere foolish as well as pro- 
fane. Take a lesson from Abraham, ye men of 
the nineteenth century! 

Abraham's tents were pitched in Mamre. It 
was high noon, and the patriarch was sitting in 
the shade of an oak at his tent door. He raised 
his eyes and saw three strangers standing near. 
He courteously rose and pressed hospitality upon 
them. The best his tent and flocks afforded was 
hastily prepared for their refreshment. Was he 



86 LONG AGO. 

entertaining angels unawares? He found out in 
due time that he was doing more than that — that 
he was entertaining the Lord of angels. The 
Trinity began to speak in the singular number and 
first person, and that first person gradually shone 
out as divine. The promise of Isaac was repeated 
with new emphasis. Then the strangers rose and 
took the way towards Sodom, accompanied cour- 
teously a little way by Abraham. As he was 
about to leave them, they began to tell him of the 
great wickedness of Sodom and its sister cities, 
and of the divine thought of destroying them. 
Abraham at once thought of Lot. He knew that 
Lot was at heart a good man, though living in a 
very bad place. And it seemed to him that in so 
large a place there must be quite a number of 
rood men whom it would be a pity to destroy 
with the rest. So he set to pleading. Surely the 
cities of the plain had not wholly gone to the 
bad. Would God destroy the righteous with the 
wicked? Say fifty righteous? No, He would not 
do that. Say forty-five righteous? No, He would 
not do that. Say forty, say thirty, say twenty? 
inquired the intercessor. No, the cities should be 
spared if even twenty good people could be found. 
Even now Abraham had his misgivings; and, to 
make matters perfectly sure, he begged that he 
might be allowed to reduce his number to ten; if 
the good Lord would only allow that, he would 
not presume to ask again. Yes, the good Lord 



ABRAHAM. 87 

would allow even that. Let no man say that per- 
sistent prayer is of no use. Nor let any hereafter 
say that the Londons and Romes and New Yorks 
may not be saved from the judgments they merit 
by the presence in them of comparatively a hand- 
ful of righteous people ! 

Abraham passed an anxious night. He was 
afraid that, after all, he had not got his figures 
low enough to protect Lot. So the next morning 
he rose early and hastened to the place where he 
had parted from his divine guest, and which seems 
to have commanded a view of Siddim. To his 
dismay he saw a dense smoke rising from the 
whole plain. Then he knew that the bolt had 
fallen, knew that Sodom with all its thousands 
did not contain a do^en good people, thought he 
knew that his nephew had fallen a victim with 
the rest. Bad company has been the death of 
many a good man. "Come out of her, my peo- 
ple, that ye be not partakers in her plagues;" but 
if His people neglect or delay too long to heed the 
warning, the scourge will slay suddenly the in- 
nocent with the guilty. Such is providence. 

As it was, Lot narrowly escaped. He was sit- 
ting at the gate of Sodom when two of the three 
strangers from whom Abraham had parted came 
up. The nephew, too, was hospitable. The 
evening shadows were already falling — would 
they not accept a place with him for the night? 
That must have been a horrible night to Lot. It 



88 LOSTG AGO. 

is horrible even to read of it; and, had Abraham 
been there, he would have seen such a cogent 
demonstration of the awful wickedness of the 
place that he would hardly have found it in 
his heart to put up a single prayer for stay of 
judgment. Lot's guests had to work a miracle 
to protect themselves and the family from the 
abominableness of the people. The profligates 
were smitten with blindness — outward blindness. 
Blindness of the other sort they already had — 
that which belongs to reprobate sinners, all ripe 
for the pit and yet not anticipating it. 

Then the strangers disclosed themselves and 
their errand. They had come as heaven's execu- 
tioners. Lot must go out into the city, under 
cover of the brief remainder of the night, and 
warn his sons-in-law of what was impending and 
prepare them for immediate flight. He went, 
but went in vain. He had to leave his mocking 
kindred to their fate and hasten homeward to 
look after the safety of those under his own roof. 

" Up and away /" cried the angels as soon as 
the day dawned. ' ' Take your wife and two daugh- 
ters and be gone /" said urgent voice and gesture. 
But it was hard to go. Lot had investments in 
the city. Members of his family must be left 
behind. Besides, the morning just streaking the 
east looked like any other morning, and, as its 
pale ray dimly lighted the city, it looked as se- 
cure as it had ever done. Not one of all the 



ABRAHAM. 89 

thousands around him had any fears whatever for 
their safety. Even Lot and his family were not 
as swift in their movements as they ought to have 
been. They little knew how divine justice was 
surging like an angry ocean against barriers 
that threatened every moment to give way. 
But the angels knew. And to their hurry- 
ing words they added hurrying hands. They 
laid hold of the lingering fugitives and drew 
them along till they were without the city. 
" Now," cried the angels, " escape for your 
lives; look not behind you, neither stay in all 
the plain; escape to the mountain lest ye be con- 
sumed." But it was some distance to the moun- 
tain ; might not Lot and his companions be 
allowed to go to the little city Zoar? It was a 
very little city, and it was near. If the Lord 
would only be merciful enough to spare that and 
allow them to take refuge there ! The Lord was 
merciful enough. Zoar was saved that day by 
the intercession of a righteous man, and for his 
sake. So the family set off towards that refuge. 
But, alas ! one of their number never reached it. 
The wife of Lot was not careful to follow direc- 
tions. She looked behind her and became a 
pillar of salt. 

Lot entered Zoar just as the sun was rising. 
Now the fugitives could look behind them, pro- 
vided they could keep from looking above them. 
For in a moment the rising sun disappeared, a 



CJO LONG AGO. 

weird light came in its place, red clouds infolding 
flames surged up the sky like battalions rushing 
to their place in battle at the clarion call of some 
mighty captain. Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, 
Zeboim — over each of them a fiery canopy hung 
for a moment, and glared with its wrathful face 
into the faces white with dismay that were 
upturned to it. Did the sinners know what it 
meant? Had their consciences no suggestion to 
make? Was some slight hope still left them 
that what they saw was only a natural phenome- 
non, and would soon pass harmlessly away? 
No doubt that fiery cope looked down on all 
varieties of behavior in the people who crowded 
the walls and streets and house-tops of the 
devoted cities. It was but for a moment that 
earth and heaven thus confronted each other 
before joining battle. Then heaven charged. 
As if from four celestial batteries, down shot a 
mighty rain of sulphurous fires. Daylight per- 
ished in the ghastly blue light of the balls and 
tongue of flame that swept down on every house 
and on every person. Walls, dwellings, trees, 
shrubs, grasses, men — became torches. One 
burst of anguished cry and all was silent. 
Heaven was avenged; there went curling up the 
smoke of a great furnace. This was what Abra- 
ham saw from his lookout at Mamre, and what 
Lot saw from his little city of refuge. And Jor- 
dan came down and lapped the poisonous ruins, 



ABRAHAM. 91 

and gathered them into its bosom, and died. 
Behold the Dead Sea ! 

All these particulars, and others besides, Lot 
no doubt told over to Abraham ; and together they 
talked of the mingled justice and love of God — of 
his love in caring for the righteous and listening 
to their prayers, of his justice in the overthrow of 
incorrigible offenders. 

From the date of his call in Chaldsea the 
childless Abraham had the promise of children. 
But the fulfilment of the promise lingered for 
many a long year. Sixty years old became 
eighty-six, and yet his tent was ungladdened by 
the life and music of young voices. Of course 
this was a tax on his faith. But his faith was so 
large that it could stand taxes, even Oriental ones, 
without becoming bankrupt. Then came what, 
at first, seemed fulfilment. But no, Ishmael was 
not the child of promise, and his father was 
obliged to relinquish what seemed a gleam of 
sight and fall back again into the arms of faith. 
He did it gracefully. No complaint was made of 
the slow-marching providence. Hope deferred 
did not make his heart sick. For some fourteen 
years more he waited, staggering not at the prom- 
ise through unbelief: then, when he was a hun- 
dred years old, Isaac came, and the patient trust 
of the old man in the God whom he served was 
justified. Of course God was pleased with such a 
mighty faith. We all like to be trusted, and God 



92 LONG AGO. 

is like ourselves in this respect. Trust honors 
him. It honors him just in proportion to the diffi- 
culties in the way of it — to the improbabilities, 
failures, impossibilities which Satan and our own 
shortsightedness are apt to suggest. If, in defi- 
ance of such things, our confidence in God does 
not tremble one bit, but stands like some massive 
cliff on the ocean-shore, against which the waves 
heave themselves and are straightway dashed into 
spray and foam, then God has found a people after 
his own heart. The faith of Abraham was such a 
cliff. It was grand, it was glorious! He deserved 
to be called "the Father of the Faithful." Had 
the trial of his faith stopped at the birth of Isaac 
his example would have been one of the most 
brilliant in all history. 

But the trial did not stop here. The years 
went on, and the promised babe became the prom- 
ising young man of twenty. Abraham had not 
failed in the bringing up of his son, as too many 
weak good men would have done, but had ful- 
filled the Lord's prediction that said, "For I 
know him, that he will command his children and 
his household after him, and they shall keep the 
way of the Lord to do justice and judgment." 
The whole great household was kept on a strictly 
religious footing. Even the servants and depen- 
dents of every name were subjected to a careful 
religious oversight and training. As to his son 
Isaac, practically his only son, and the heir to his 



ABRAHAM. 93 

great possessions and still greater expectations, 
he was of course particularly careful. He took 
sucli pains with the education of Isaac as it would 
become a monarch to do for the young prince 
destined to be his successor on the throne, espe- 
cially with his religious education. He forbade 
him the evil; he drew him towards the good. 
He taught him to pray and he taught him to 
obey — to obey both himself and his Maker. He 
denied him bad company. He ruled him and en- 
couraged him along a God-fearing and God-serv- 
ing path. As a consequence, he came to have a 
son worth having, one that was a comfort and 
honor to him. If the boy had not such a school- 
ing in the arts and sciences and languages as we 
now give our boys, he had perhaps its full equiva- 
lent in the training of his memory, of his judg- 
ment, of his observing and reasoning faculties, of 
his knowledge of human nature, of his power to 
live wisely and efficiently as the chieftain of a 
clan in Canaan as it was two thousand years be- 
fore Christ. The true education for a young per- 
son is that which will make the most of him and 
best fit him for his sphere and times. We may be 
sure that Isaac had all the advantages that a pious, 
wise, and wealthy father could give him. At the 
age of twenty years he was undoubtedly the great- 
est treasure that rich Abraham possessed. 

One evening about this time — it may have 
been just after he had been talking over joyfully 



94 LONG AGO. 

with Sarali their hopes and plans and reasons for 
thankfulness in regard to the young man — the 
word of the Lord came again to Abraham. He 
w r as thunderstruck. Could it be that he had 
heard aright? It was so unexpected, so contrary 
to what he had been in the habit of thinking 
could come from God, so seemingly against all the 
promises he had received ! His son must die — the 
son for whom he had waited so long, with whose 
training he had taken such pains, on whom such 
joyful hopes had been built — this son must die, 
and, worst of all, by his father's hand! That was 
a trial, if ever there was a trial. The faith that 
could stand that could stand anything. Well, the 
faith of Abraham stood it. After the first bewil- 
derment from the mighty shock was over there 
was no hesitation. Just as a staunch ship sud- 
denly struck by a huge wave lurches for a moment 
and then rights herself and rides the wave, so did 
the faith of Abraham. Just how he managed to 
explain matters to himself so as to justify God is 
not wholly clear, though it is said that among his 
thoughts was this, that God could raise the dead 
Isaac to life. Very likely he did not attempt to 
explain the matter fully, but left that to be done 
in God's own time and way; planted himself sim- 
ply on his allegiance, and said, "Though he slay 
me, yet will I trust him," as we all have to do 
sooner or later. 

( ( Ho, EHezer ! have my son Isaac and two 



ABRAHAM. 95 

young men ready for a journey early to-morrow 
morning." As soon as the morning dawned the 
patriarch rose, loaded his ass with necessaries, in- 
cluding wood for a burnt offering, and started. 
He had a plenty of time to think about what he 
was proposing to do, for it took him three days to 
reach that mountain in the land of Moriah where 
he had been instructed to go for the sacrifice. Of 
course his thoughts were all the time running on 
the one theme. If ever Satan was present to 
suggest per contras and to say hard things of God 
and his service, it was on that journey. "Get you 
back, you fool ! Get you back, you hard-hearted 
monster of a father ! You are almost as hard as 
the God whom you serve, and a great deal harder 
than I am. What will Sarah say to you on your 
return without her boy?" Nobody can keep Sa- 
tan from talking, but everybody can refuse his 
suggestions, though it is sometimes a very hard 
thing to do. But Abraham did not flinch through 
all that three days' travel. Did not God know 
what He was about, and would not all come out 
right in the end? "Only trust him: only trust 
him," cried the loyal heart; and on he went with 
no backward look till the fateful mount was seen 
afar off. Then he said to the young men, " Stop 
here while we go to the mount to worship." Ap- 
parently he was afraid that his servants might 
interfere to prevent the sacrifice, as you and I in 
our blindness perhaps would have done, and 



96 LONG AGO. 

as all the world in its blindness would have 
done, to prevent God, in a later age and in that 
same region, and probably on the same mount, 
from sacrificing his only Son for the world's sal- 
vation. 

" And Abraham took the wood of the burnt- 
offering and laid it upon Isaac his son ; and he took 
the fire in his hand and a knife; and they went 
both of them together. And Isaac spoke unto 
Abraham his father and said, My father ! And 
he said, Here am I, my son. And he said, Be- 
hold the fire and the wood; but where is the 
lamb for a burnt-offering ?" Ah, that question 
must have cut like a knife. But the father 
had walked 011 knives all the way from Mamre, 
and an additional one, however keen, made little 
difference. He had courage and grace to say, 
"My son, God will provide himself a burnt-offer- 
ing.' 1 And they went on both together, the son 
wondering what his father could mean, the deter- 
mined father hurrying his steps so that the long 
agony might be over as soon as possible. Arrived 
at the appointed spot, Abraham proceeded to 
build an altar with the aid of his son. With the 
aid of his son he laid the wood in order upon it. 
Without his son's aid, and probably not without 
some protests and struggles 011 his part, he bound 
that costly human lamb and laid him on 
the wood. Aloft gleamed the sacrificial knife. 
il Abraham ! Abraham !" The knife hung sus- 



ABRAHAM. 97 

pended. He had recognised the well-known 
voice. It bade him desist. The great trial was 
finished, triumphantly finished ! An example of 
such confidence in God as the world had never 
seen, but much needed to see, was at last pro- 
vided. God had never intended to conduct him 
to the gates of death, only to the gates of victory 
hard by. 

We are not to distrust divine leadings, into 
whatever straits they may seem to bring us. 
Straits are made for great victories. Thermopylae 
with its opportunities is always turning up in the 
history of the church and of the individual. Then 
we are simply to ask what God bids us do and 
proceed at once to the doing of it, though it seem 
as if the heavens were falling. They will not 
fall. If we push allegiance to extremity we shall 
have great deliverance. Leonidas and Abraham 
will not need to die in conquering. At the last 
moment, if not before, God will come to the res- 
cue. He that loses his life in obeying shall 
save it. 

The young man on whom so much depended, 
the child of so many hopes and prayers, and who, 
doubtless, had become doubly dear in consequence 
of his narrow escape, Abraham naturally wished 
to see suitably married. And to him a suitable 
marriage did not mean a marriage into one of the 
ungodly families about him, however rich and 
powerful it might be. He did not believe in be- 

Lou? Ag^. n 



93 LONG AGO. 

ing unequally yoked together with unbelievers. 
So he sent his steward Eliezer far away to Haran 
in Mesopotamia to see if in the family of his bro- 
ther Nahor a suitable maiden could not be found. 
He had a good opinion of that family, great con- 
fidence in the good sense and fidelity of Bliezer, 
and greater confidence still in the guiding hand of 
Him who had undertaken to befriend him and his 
race. The result justified his confidence. The 
servant as well as his master took the I^ord into 
his counsels and was guided to Rebecca. That 
marriage was made in heaven. Had it been 
made elsewhere it had better not have been made 
at all. And there are not a few marriages of this 
untoward sort, marriages that take no account of 
a pious stock, of a religious training, and in the 
making of which no divine guidance has been 
asked. 

Good-by, Abraham! founder of a chosen gen- 
eration, ancestor of the Redeemer, hero of faith, 
father of all believers, friend of God. You will 
live to see one hundred and seventy-five years. 
And then you will live to see years without num- 
ber with the many who shall come from the east 
and the west and sit down with Abraham and 
Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of God. Glorious 
believer! May your faith be mine. It was loftier 
than Ararat. 



IV. MAMRE TO MEMPHIS. 



JOSEPH 
The Viceroy 



FROM MAMRE TO MEMPHIS — JOSEPH. IOI 

IV. FROM MAMRE TO MEMPHIS- 
JOSEPH. 

The Scripture account of Joseph is one of the 
most effective pieces of writing known to us. It 
greatly interests all sorts of people. The events 
it recounts are most striking and various; the 
times and customs it deals with are strange with 
the antiquity of almost a thousand years before 
Homer; the characters and scenes which pass be- 
fore us are rich in variety, in strong contrasts, in 
brilliant Oriental colors, and in the glory of the 
supernatural. The manner of the writer is so 
simple and vivid that we seem carried back bodily 
through the centuries and set down in the very 
midst of the Long Ago. We rather see than read. 
We look forth with the outward eye on the pas- 
tures of Canaan and the palaces of Egypt, on the 
flocks and herds of pilgrim patriarchs along the 
banks of the Jordan, and on the cities and harvests 
and monumental splendors along the banks of the 
Nile. Crook in hand we saunter through pastoral 
solitudes; camel-mounted we traverse the desert; 
we elbow our way or drive our chariots along the 
crowded streets of Thebes or Memphis. We see 
the inside of tents, of dungeons, of courts, of char- 
acters — the heights and depths of ancient life. Ev- 
erywhere, whether we are dealing with shepherds 



102 LONG AGO. 

or merchants or princes, we have a sense of dealing 
not with mere ideas and shadows, but with sub- 
stance and tangible realities. We fear and hope, 
we suffer and prosper, with Joseph. We share the 
anxieties and despairs and joyful deliverances of 
Jacob. And, best of all, the narrative makes 
actual and substantial to us that divine provi- 
dence in the affairs of individuals and nations 
which (God forgive us !) is so apt to appear a mere 
simulacrum. 

Joseph was born in Mesopotamia. That was 
a good country to be born in — the sunny and fer- 
tile east country beyond the Euphrates where 
Eden was located and whence diverged the prim- 
itive populations. It was also, on some accounts, 
a bad country to be born in; for at that time its 
inhabitants generally were idolaters and had the 
vicious ways that belong to idolaters. Into this 
good and bad country Jacob, when a young man, 
had fled in fear of his brother Esau whom he had 
craftily deprived of his birthright; and here for 
twenty years he continued in busy and prosper- 
ous exile. Here were born most of his twelve 
sons, and among them Joseph, the youngest but 
one. 

Joseph was well-born — which is sometimes a 
much better thing than to be born. He was neith- 
er the son nor the grandson of a king, but he 
was something better; for he was the great-grand- 
son of Abraham the Faithful, the friend of God, 



FROM MAMRE TO MEMPHIS — JOSEPH. IO3 

the father of believers, the man whom God selected 
from all the world to found a chosen people, to con- 
serve the true religion, to become the ancestor of 
Jesus — God manifest in the flesh. His grandfather 
Isaac and father Jacob were men of the same gen- 
eral strain. Though not without their faults, 
they were uncompromising protestauts against the 
corruptions and errors of their day; and, in com- 
parison with most about them, were saints deserv- 
ing perennial fame. So Jesus thought. u Many 
shall come from the cast and west, and shall sit 
down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the 
kingdom of God. " So the blood of Joseph was 
blue. The stock from which he sprang was 
more than regal because it was divine. To be in 
the line of successive generations of godly men 
is a higher honor than it is to have a sceptre for a 
father and a mint of money for a mother. The 
aristocracy of goodness is the only one that God 
and religion recognize. He who visits the iniqui- 
ties of fathers on the children to the third and 
fourth generation does at least as much for their 
righteousness. I call the sons of the Pilgrim 
Fathers gentle-blooded though not one of them 
ever felt the flat of a king's sword. Whoever is 
born of godly parents, and especially of a line of 
them, is born under an auspicious star, even 
though it be Saturn. 

When Joseph left Mesopotamia he was about 
six years old. For the next eleven years he was, 



104 LONG AGO. 

first, in slow transit to Canaan with the entire 
family and property of his' father; and after their 
arrival he was the close companion of that father, 
while his older ten brothers were much away from 
home in their pastoral pursuits. He became the 
favorite son. Jacob saw in him the image of 
his beloved and lost Rachel. And, more than 
this, he probably saw in him an amiability and 
affectionateness and dutifulness which contrasted 
but too favorably with the behavior of the older 
brothers. So Jacob loved the lovable boy more 
than he did the others. Was he to blame for 
this? I would not care to say it, especially in 
view of the fact that even God does not love all 
his children alike. Perhaps the patriarch showed 
his partiality unwisely, and thus started jealous- 
ies and alienations in the household. However 
this may have been, the favoritism was not with- 
out its advantages to Joseph. It kept him much 
by his father's side during those early years when 
character is rapidly forming. He would have 
gained little by association with his brothers. But 
in his father he saw nothing but an example of 
devout and established piety. From paternal lips 
he heard nothing save what was fitted to form 
him to wisdom and virtue. Joseph was born un- 
der a good star, but he was bred under one still 
better. Godly heredity is good, but a godly train- 
ing is worth two of it. You could cast a most 
promising horoscope any day for a child of whom 



FROM MAMRE TO MEMPHIS — JOSEPH. 105 

you know that lie belongs to a righteous stock 
and will have a careful righteous training. 

I have said that Joseph was a favorite with his 
father. For mainly the same reasons, I suppose, 
he was also a favorite with heaven. To show his 
love Jacob gave the youth a beautiful garment; 
to show its love heaven sent to him prophecies of* 
a great future. He dreamed, and saw the harvest 
sheaves of his brethren bowing down to his sheaf. 
He dreamed again, and saw the sun, moon, and 
eleven stars making obeisance to him. In this 
dual way he was taught that Providence had 
taken his fortunes in charge and would one day 
make him chief of his father's house. Now, 
Joseph, take a little advice from a friend who has 
seen somewhat more of the world than you have. 
Do not tell these dreams of yours to your bro- 
thers. Bad blood between you has already been 
stirred. They are already so vexed by the evi- 
dent favoritism of your father that they find it 
hard to speak peaceably to you. Do not make 
the case worse by telling them now what new 
ambitious shapes your thoughts have been taking, 
even in sleep. But the inexperienced lad, per- 
haps, had nobody to give him this easy lesson in 
human nature; so what does he do but blurt out 
his sparkling visions just where he ought not — ■ 
into a powder-magazine all open and ready to 
catch at a spark. Of course an explosion fol- 
lowed. The long-accumulating jealousy and 



106 IX>NG AGO. 

hatred burst out into flaming speech: "Shalt 
thou indeed reign over us? We will see to that!" 
and desires and plans of cruelty began to ferment 
and take shape in their minds. Opportunity only 
was wanting to bring on a catastrophe. But, 
when matters come to that pass, Satan is sure to 
see that an opportunity is not long wanting. 

Ivike his fathers, Jacob was rich in flocks and 
herds. This made necessary a frequent change 
of pasture. It was on one of the long absences 
from the central camp that their business required 
that Satan gave the wicked brothers the oppor- 
tunity they wished. They had been away from 
home so long that their father became anxious 
about them. Not being able, as we are, to sit in 
his tent and telephone inquiries into all parts of 
the country, he had no resource but to send a mes- 
senger. So Joseph, now about seventeen years 
old, was sent to look up the absentees. He went 
with no idea of what was in store for him. So far 
was he from reciprocating his brothers' ill-will 
that he did not even suspect its existence save as 
a surface and transient irritation; and he went on 
his way with a sense of perfect security and with 
the hope of soon carrying back to Mamre news of 
their safety and prosperity. From Mamre to 
Shechem, from Shechem to Dothan: at last he 
descried in the distance his father's flocks and his 
father's sons. He joyfully quickened his steps, 
happy in the thought of an ended journey, of 



FROM MAMRE TO MEMPHIS — JOSEPH. 107 

pleasant greetings, and of a father relieved from 
his anxieties. Perhaps in his impatience he 
called out warm salutations from afar and re- 
newed them at every step. And now he is 
among the men. Why this ominous silence? 
With startled eye lie looks from face to face, only 
to see so many thunder clouds fringed with light- 
ning. " Now is your time," cried the Satan in 
their hearts. "The aged father cannot see you. 
You can easily palm off some plausible story on 
him. And as for the God whose fear you have 
cast off, if he exists at all he is one who never 
says anything, whatever happens. Up, and make 
an end of this dreamer." They grasped him. 
They tore from him his goodly tunic. They 
bound him hand and foot. And, had it not been 
for the suggestion of the eldest, they would have 
killed him then and there with their own hands, 
true sons of Cain as they were. But Reuben 
suggested that their object would be secured just 
as well if they should cast Joseph into a certain 
deep pit close by and leave him there to die of 
starvation. To do this seemed to them a shade 
less criminal than to redden their own hands 
with paternal blood. Admirable casuistry! Peo- 
ple began very early to make very nice distinc- 
tions. They did not need to have at their com- 
mand all the resources of the Sanscrit and the 
Greek in order to do it. So the brothers agreed 
to make the pit their proxy in the murder they 



IOS LONG AGO. 

proposed, and cast Joseph into it. One would 
suppose that they would have had small appetite 
for their daily bread just after such a deed; but 
their hardness of heart was such that they were 
able to sit down to eat and drink. Was it not a 
wonder that their food did not choke them ? 

While they were busy at their meal they dis- 
covered a caravan in the distance coming towards 
them. This at once suggested an improvement 
on their plan. Why should they not make a lit- 
tle money out of Joseph and get rid of him at the 
same time? Doubtless it was a trading caravan 
going to Egypt: the traders might be willing to 
give a good price for a good-looking young man; 
and once in Egypt he would never be heard of 
again. A slave there, he would be as good as 
dead. So, long before the days of Aristotle and 
Euclid, they logically argued and acted. They 
hastily drew up the youth out of the pit; and 
when the Midianites came up they struck a bar- 
gain with them. Their brother brought just 
twenty silver pieces. Very likely they asked 
thirty; but the traders took advantage of the anx- 
iety to sell and pretended not to be anxious to 
buy — besides, the title was none of the best — and 
so beat the brothers down a third. 

One is a little curious to know how Joseph 
behaved through all these proceedings. His 
brethren afterwards said that the boy seemed very 
much disturbed and used entreaties. But did he 






FROM MAMRE TO MEMPHIS — JOSEPH. 10 9 

persist in these demonstrations ? Did lie continue 
to the last to expostulate and protest and strug- 
gle against his fate; or did amazement at what 
was happening and despair, as he looked through 
his tears into the stony faces about him, soon take 
away all power of struggle or speech? Who 
could have thought it? His own brothers, too! 
And that broken-hearted father! But a truce to 
such thoughts. The young slave must hurry 
away with his masters, perhaps carrying a bur- 
den, and pricked with spears as he tries to keep 
up with the long-paced camels. 

What does Joseph think of his dreams now? 
He a favorite of heaven ! Is there any heaven to 
see and care for what is done on the earth ? The 
skies are black as midnight, black as Egypt. 
And yet, O twice murdered and now enslaved 
lad, trust in God ! He knows how to overrule. 
He can take the wise in their own craftiness. 
Out of solid darkness he can carve out a flight of 
steps upward into day. 

The patriarch sat day after day at the door of 
his tent watching for the dear boy who never 
came. At last appeared the brothers and held up 
before him a torn and blood-stained coat. "This 
we have found: know now whether this be thy 
son's coat or no." The heart of the old man 
broke. Naught remained for him but to die as 
quickly as possible. Cruel men — nay, brutes in 
human form ! One wants to become a swift prov- 



IIO LONG AGO. 

idence and smite you hip and thigh. You have 
murdered your brother and now you have mur- 
dered your father ! You fratricides, you patri- 
cides, how can you escape the damnation of hell ! 

At the end of his journey the slave of the Mid- 
ianites became the slave of Potiphar, an officer of 
the Egyptian court. Despite appearances, the 
Iyord God of his fathers had not deserted the 
youth, and the youth in his new place did not 
desert the Lord God of his fathers. His diligence 
and conscientious fidelity, with the divine bless- 
ing, made all he did to prosper. This soon at- 
tracted the notice of his master. For Joseph to 
be well noticed was to be well esteemed and 
trusted. He found such grace in the sight of 
Potiphar that he was finally put in charge of all the 
family affairs; for in Egypt, as everywhere else, 
nothing succeeds like success. From that mo- 
ment the house of the Egyptian was wonderfully 
prospered. His granaries swelled, his lands mul- 
tiplied, and his palace grew splendid with treas- 
ures. Potiphar drank of Joseph's cup. He rose 
on Joseph's shoulders. As soon as the Egyptian 
saw this continuous and immense prosperity under 
the management of his steward he gave himself 
no further care. He knew naught that he had 
save the bread that he ate. 

In this flourishing life passed ten years. The 
youth had become a beautiful young man. His 
advantages and successes had not served, as such 



FROM MAMRK TO MEMPHIS — JOSEPH. Ill 

things too often do, to weaken the principles of 
integrity and religion. He stood in his young 
manhood like some strong pillar on which tem- 
ples may lean without fearing a fall. A time 
came for testing its strength. The winds of temp- 
tation arose and blew a tempest. It became ne- 
cessary for the young man to choose between vir- 
tue and prosperity — between the favor of God and 
the favor of man. He seems not to have hesi- 
tated. He saved his character and he lost his 
place. And his downfall was into a dungeon. 
What now of your dreams, O dreamer ! Have 
you not quite given up faith in them? Perhaps, 
while your sun was shining so brightly, you 
thought that fulfilment was casting its shadows 
before; but now that all of a sudden your sky has 
no sun at all, nor even a star, how can fulfilment 
cast that shadow of itself which we call hope? 
But it may be Joseph walked by faith and not by 
sight. Perhaps he remembered that, although 
God had promised him great things, he had not 
promised that he should reach them at once or by 
a smooth road. Jerusalem has some very rough 
approaches. 

The God who for years made Joseph the vice- 
roy of Potiphar soon made him viceroy of his 
jailer. His almighty Friend could not be shut 
away from him by bolts and bars and walls of 
massive masonry. Somehow the hard heart of 
the keeper was touched and softened. "The 



112 LONG AGO. 

heart of the king is in the hand of the L,ord;" 
and it turned out that so was the heart of the 
king's turnkey. That proverbially flinty thing 
melted towards Joseph. Soon the young man 
became as important in the prison as he had been 
in the palace. He did well whatever he did. 
Whatever he touched seemed to prosper. And I 
imagine that he was one of the few men who 
carry a grand certificate of character and capacity 
in their very faces — men whom you have only to 
look at in order to feel that they can be trusted 
without limit. However this may have been, 
somehow Joseph inspired unlimited confidence in 
his keeper. Everything was put under his hand. 
Whatever was done in the prison he was the doer 
of it. So thorough was the faith reposed in his 
ability and fidelity that his principal ceased to 
overlook him, though responsible with his life for 
the consequences. What was the use ! — he had 
found that rare thing, a proxy who would do bet- 
ter than himself. A divine hand was manifest 
in such an unusual venture. To our knowledge 
it was a very safe venture, that is to say, no ven- 
ture at all, as was proved by the result. It was 
the good fortune of Joseph to carry a blessing 
wherever he went, instead of curses, as some do. 
He carried a blessing into that Egyptian prison, 
of which, though a prisoner himself, he was the 
general manager. 

Hitherto the providence of God had marched 



FROM MAMRE TO MEMPHIS — JOSEPH. 1 13 

slowly; for most of the time it had seemed not to 
march at all, or rather had seemed to march the 
wrong way. But now it went forward by long 
and majestic strides. The same heaven-sent vis- 
ions of the night by which his final greatness was 
foretold to Joseph, and by which in those far-off 
times God so often supplied the place of a written 
revelation, made their appearance in the prison. 
Two prisoners dreamed. What did their dreams 
mean ? Could not Joseph, who could do so many 
things, interpret dreams also? So he was called. 
A divine afflatus came upon him and he was able 
to explain the riddles. In three days fulfilment 
came. The cup-bearer of Pharaoh went forth 
from prison to press the grapes of his three vine- 
branches into the royal cup. The baker of Pha- 
raoh went forth to lose the baked meats from his 
three baskets by losing his head. Behold the 
prison superintendent suddenly risen to the rank 
of a prophet ! And what shall be done to the 
man whom the King of kings delighteth to honor? 
L,et royal apparel be brought and the horse which 
the king rideth upon, and let proclamation be 
made before him: Thus shall it be done to the man 
whom the king delighteth to honor ! 

King Pharaoh slept. He saw before him the 
valley of the Nile. Seven fat kine made their 
way up the bank of the river and fed in the pas- 
tures. Seven lean kine followed, so lean as had 
never before been seen in the land. These at- 

Long K'io. O 



114 LONG AGO. 

tacked the others, devoured them, and remained 
as lean as ever. The scene changed. The king- 
saw a stalk of wheat put forth seven ears, rank 
and good. While he looked there came forth 
seven thin and blasted ears, which absorbed the 
others-and remained as thin and blasted as ever. 
In the morning the monarch called in the wise 
men of his court to interpret. u Ye diviners, astrol- 
ogers, magicians, necromancers, by whatever 
name ye are called, are ye mere pretenders or 
not ? If not, now prove it. ' ' They confessed them- 
selves baffled. Then the cup-bearer bethought 
himself of the young interpreter of the prison 
whose words had come so exactly and swiftly true 
in his own case; and soon the young Hebrew was 
standing in the presence of the royalty and wis- 
dom of Egypt. The afflatus came on him again. 
With a winning modesty and grace he told the 
king of seven years of great plenty, followed by 
as many years of famine. He pointed out how 
the abundance of one septenniad should be made 
to feed the destitution of another. The monarch 
was charmed. Somehow God made the unprova- 
ble interpretation shine by its own light — neither 
the first time nor the last of his doing this. In 
these days he sometimes turns theorems into axi- 
oms; and many a humble Christian sees at first 
hand that Christianity to be true which others 
accept only on proof. 

Now, Hebrew of the Hebrews, thou art be- 



FROM MAMRK TO MEMPHIS — JOSEPH. 115 

ginning to ride the flood which threatened to 
drown thee! Now, slave of the pit, the caravan, 
the palace, and the dungeon, mount above the 
highest of thy masters. Now, thou hated of thy 
brethren, thou bought and sold of Arabs, thou 
slandered of thy mistress, thou almost forgotten 
of thy friend the cup-bearer, accept the fulfilment 
of thine own dreams in a primacy not unworthy 
thy surpassing virtue! He was at once arrayed 
in royal vesture and gold. The signet gem of 
Egypt shone on his finger. An authority to 
which the loftiest subject in all the realm must 
bow was placed in his hand. He went forth from 
the audience chamber of the Pharaohs to hear men 
cry before him, Bow the knee! and to ride through 
the streets of Memphis prime minister of the most 
splendid of the ancient monarchies. u He made 
him lord of his house and ruler of all his sub- 
stance, to bind his princes at his pleasure and 
teach his senators wisdom." 

During the seven years of great plenty that 
immediately followed Joseph exerted himself to 
lay up vast store of food. His granaries were 
crowded with wheat and the cities were crowd- 
ed with his granaries. He gathered corn as 
the sand of the sea, until he left numbering. 
So the years of famine, which came to time 
with astronomic exactness, found him well pre- 
pared. And a sore famine it was, extending 
into all the surrounding countries. And all 



Il6 LONG AGO. 

these countries sent down into Egypt for food. 
At the storehouses of Joseph waited side by side 
w T ith dusky Egyptians they of Midian and Am- 
alek, they of Edom and Cush. Among those 
who came were the ten sons of Jacob. And 
they came and bowed themselves before the 
all-powerful Vice-Pharaoh on whose will their 
lives hung, little thinking that their sheaves 
were at last bowing down to the sheaf of their 
brother. More than twenty years had now 
passed since they had seen him ; and the guilty 
men did not recognize in the majestic prince, to 
whose face they hardly ventured to lift their eyes 
and before whom they prostrated themselves, the 
stripling whom they so pitilessly sold into slavery. 
But well did he know them. 

What a fine opportunity for revenge! How 
many people in his circumstances would have 
caught at it and have informed the culprits as 
they were driven out to die of hunger or the 
sword that their sin had found them out, that 
they deserved even worse treatment, that " though 
the mills of the gods grind slowly, they must be 
expected to grind exceeding fine" ! This would 
have been poetically just, but it would not have 
been righteous; and Joseph was bent, above all 
things, on being righteous. Satan is very bold, 
and I do not know but that he was bold enough 
to suggest to the much-wronged man to become a 
frowninof and red-handed Nemesis. If he did this 



FROM MAMRE TO MEMPHIS — JOSEPH. II7 

lie promptly heard, Get thee behind me, Satan! 
Joseph the viceroy became Joseph the sublime. 
He kept back his hand and he kept back his 
heart. He joyfully resolved on rivers of love and 
mercy instead of rivers of wrath and justice. But 
for the present it might be well to try the bro- 
thers somewhat. So he insisted on detaining one 
of their number till the others had returned with 
their youngest brother Benjamin. When the 
whole brotherhood was before him he declared 
himself. He gave full vent to the feelings of his 
great forgiving heart. He fell on the necks of 
those once hard and cruel, but now (it is to be 
hoped) melted and penitent men, and wept over 
them and kissed them. He quieted their natural 
fears, he palliated their conduct towards himself, 
he strove in the most tender and delicate manner 
to let bygones be bygones. He put into their 
mouths a most tender and moving message to his 
aged father. Let that father come to him and re- 
main near to him and be tenderly cared for in the 
best of the land all his days. Haste ye, said he, 
so eagerly did his filial heart crave to see the pa- 
triarch again. 

Then went up in long procession to Canaan 
the joyful eleven, beasts of burden laden with the 
choicest necessaries and delicacies, horses and 
chariots for the use of the aged and the tender, 
and probably an escort of honor from the troops 
of Pharaoh. And then in clue time went back in 



n8 



LONG AGO. 



still longer procession the joyful patriarch and 
those forgiven sinners the joyful brethren, and 
their joyful families with all their effects, chariots 
and horses and camels and dromedaries and flocks 
and herds, stretching miles and miles along the des- 
ert. It was no desert to these emigrants, I ween. 
As they approached their future home Joseph 
himself came forth in state to meet them. The 
son clasped to his bosom the form of the venerable 
sire: the sire clasped to his bosom the form of the 
lonor-lost and darling son. What a change it was! 

o o o 

The boy who had gone forth from the tents of 
Mamre on a petty errand was returned with the 
state and port of a sovereign to become the saviour 
of all his kindred. That was a proud moment 
for Joseph, but a prouder still for his father. Do 
not fathers rejoice more over the success of their 
children than even the children themselves do? 
i 'Now let me die," said Jacob, "since I have 
seen thy face and thou art yet alive." And, may 
it please your excellency the viceroy, how much 
better is all this than to have listened to the devil 
of revenge, and to have treated your brothers 
after the manner in which they treated you! 

So, honorably and joyfully, the Hebrews came 
to their new home. The whole land rang with 
festival sounds, and even the palace was in a 
flutter of welcome. Pharaoh held a reception in 
honor of the father of the national preserver. He 
allowed Joseph to place him in the very best of 



FROM MAMRE TO MEMPHIS— JOSEPH. 119 

all the Egyptian provinces. And that model son, 
for seventeen more years, did all he could to make 
the last days of the old man his best days. And 
when the inevitable came, he hastened away 
from his great affairs to smooth the dying pillow. 
He mourned for the dead with profound sorrow. 
He gave him the funeral of a sovereign and per- 
sonally attended his remains to the land where he 
had chosen to lie, where his fathers slept, and 
where his posterity were destined to dwell. 
"And there went up with him all the servants 
of Pharaoh, the elders of his house and all the 
elders of the land of Egypt, and all the house of 
Joseph and his brethren and his father's house, 
and chariots and horsemen, ... a very great com- 
pany." They buried Jacob as if he were the fa- 
ther of Pharaoh. 

The prosperity of Joseph was durable. He 
kept his integrity and his integrity kept him. 
Though the present is a world of change, though 
few are allowed to go on long in a course of un- 
interrupted success, God upheld the fortunes of 
Joseph with unwavering steadiness. He had the 
roughness and darkness of his way at the outset ; 
he had the smoothness and brightness of it from 
the time when he became the ruler of Egypt. 
Prime ministers are apt to have rather a brief day; 
but the primacy of Joseph seems to have lasted as 
long as he lived. And that was a long time. He 
saw a hundred and ten years, and his children's 



120 LONG AGO. 

children of three generations. He died in faith, 
which is a much better thing than not to die at 
all. A hundred and forty-four years afterward 
the Hebrews in their famous exodus took with 
them his embalmed remains, according to his dy- 
ing injunction, and placed them by the side of 
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. 

I greatly admire the filial character of Joseph. 
From the outset he was a capital son. There is 
reason to think that Jacob's partiality for him 
when a child was owing, not merely to the facts 
that he was the son of the beloved Rachel and the 
child of his old age, but also to the extraordinary 
affectionateness and dutifulness which the child 
displayed. His affection suffered nothing from 
long absence and a most busy and eventful life. 
How alive with feeling were his inquiries after his 
father at the time when he made himself known to 
his brethren ! Through the transparent words of 
the simple narrative, as through some powerful 
lenses, we seem to look in directly on a heart 
full to overflowing with filial yearnings. How 
impatient he was to have the journey begun that 
was to bring his father to him ! What careful 
provision he made for his comfortable and honor- 
able transfer from Canaan ! And when news 
came that the patriarch was approaching, with 
what abounding demonstrations of reverent wel- 
come did the ruler of the land go forth to meet 
him ! The meeting itself — what a touching scene 



FROM MAMRE TO MEMPHIS — JOSEPH. 121 

it was, what with the passionate embracing and 
profuse joyful weeping ! Our eyes grow moist 
merely to read of it; and those Egyptian nobles 
who were actually present and looked on the 
scene had a chance to know beyond all question 
whether they carried stones in their bosoms in- 
stead of hearts, or no. Escorted like a king to 
his new home, Jacob found all the remaining years 
of his life pillowed in comfort and splendor by a 
watchful devotion that never thought it could do 
enough. Happy father ! Still happier son to 
whom was allowed the opportunity to make such 
magnificent tributes of filial devotion ! Never 
does the illustrious character of Joseph appear to 
better advantage than when the romantic story of 
the great adventurer and statesman brings him 
into connection with his father. He seems to for- 
get all the grandeur of his lot and to take back 
to himself the demonstrative childish heart again; 
or rather, he seems to take delight in abasing all 
his honors before the majesty of white hairs and 
the transcendent station of a godly parent. Be- 
fore the fifth commandment was given one could 
have predicted long life and durable prosperity to 
so good a son. 

It would not be amiss if the present generation 
would take a hint from the filial behavior of Jo- 
seph. It is well worth the copying. We all have 
parents or we have their memories. Are they in 
narrow circumstances? L,ike Joseph, let us hasten 



122 LONG AGO. 

to broaden those circumstances. Are they aged 
and sorrow-stricken ? Like Joseph, let us do our 
best to make their last days their best days. Are 
they already in their graves? Like Joseph, let us 
give their wishes and memories such honors as we 
may. " Honor thy father and thy mother, that it 
may be well with thee and that thou mayest live 
long on the earth," is a commandment with 
promise which it is not wise for young or old to 
forget. 

I greatly admire the placableness of Joseph. 
He was no Mohawk. He was not a good hater. 
He knew how to forgive, if he did not know how 
to forget. That was a cruel and blood-firing 
wrong which his brothers had done him. They at 
first meant to imbrue their own hands in his blood; 
then they meant to starve him to death; and it 
was only their cupidity that led them to exchange 
his death for permanent slavery in a distant land. 
Few ties of brotherhood but would have hastened 
to snap asunder under such a strain. But his did 
not. With a stretch of generosity of which most 
men feel themselves incapable he forgave the debt 
of ten thousand talents. When he was all power- 
ful to exact the last farthing of an immense retri- 
bution, he not only exacted nothing, but freely 
gave ten thousand new talents. Instead of over- 
whelming his brothers with wrath and harms he 
overwhelmed them with love and benefits. Thus, 
nearly two millenniums before Christ, Joseph 



FROM MAMRE TO MEMPHIS — JOSEPH. 1 23 

acted on Christian principles. Most men in his 
circumstances would have been as implacable as 
death. For wrongs almost infinitely less multi- 
tudes flame into a consuming- vindictiveness, and 
compel a whole life of suns to go down on their 
wrath. How hard it is for the average man to 
get over even a single insulting word or scornful 
look ! Back thunders the harsh word, the harsh 
look — with large interest added. But this will 
never do. The law of Christ's house will not 
tolerate it. If men will not forgive they shall not 
be forgiven. If men will not forgive they cannot 
cover themselves with the example of Joseph. If 
men say that they forgive and never do works 
meet for forgiveness, they can never excuse them- 
selves by the way Joseph treated his enemies. 
His forbearance and greatness of soul were sub- 
lime. They do not strike one as suggestive of 
that approach to the brutal which our thoughtful 
friends, the philosophers, advise us to be looking 
out for as we go back into the remoter centuries. 
They seem to me almost as eloquent in favor of 
the old-fashioned views of a divine origin of man 
as is the famous fossil man of Mentone. Shall we 
find a nobler soul and nobler ethics among the 
Darwins and Spencers of our time? We com- 
mend that style of primeval savagery to the atten- 
tion of Sir John I/ubbock. We commend such 
data of ethics as he can find in the life of Joseph 
the Great to the careful notice of Herbert Speii- 



124 LONG AGO. 

cer. And if Edmund Burke were alive and yet 
to write his treatise on the Sublime and Beautiful, 
we would respectfully suggest to him to prepare 
for the work by taking a long and careful look at 
that living specimen of the sublime and beautiful 
which was found in a certain Egyptian palace 
nearly two thousand years before Christ. Yes, 
I greatly admire the great-hearted, forgiving, 
Christlike Joseph. The man was far greater than 
his fortune. Even let us bare our heads as we 
look at him, and say to ourselves, "Well, man is 
immortal. One capable of such things cannot 
die." Who does not see in the light of such an 
example how grand and wise is the Christian law 
for dealing with injuries? 

I greatly admire the general religious con- 
stancy of Joseph. It appears from the tenor of 
the narrative that he lived his conscientious, 
principled, God-fearing life steadily to the end. 
And yet he was sorely tempted — tempted to mis- 
anthropy, tempted to atheism, tempted to poly- 
theism, tempted to immorality, tempted by the 
general example of a luxurious and pleasure-seek- 
ing court, perhaps above all tempted by that 
broad wave of worldly prosperity on the crest of 
which he was ever riding during the last seventy 
years of his life. But his was a staunch ship. It 
weathered equally well the storms of adversity 
and the quite as dangerous storms of prosperity. 
We have seen vessels ^o down in half the sea. 



FROM MAM RE TO MEMPHIS — JOSEPH. 1 25 

But tins vessel went on and on, through fair 
weather and foul, through calms and gales — ■ 
never beating backward, never veering, always 
heading towards God and duty. Wherever the 
course of the narrative allows us a glimpse of his 
spiritual condition we see the same unswerving, 
unfaltering service of the God of his fathers. 

Human beings are a backsliding set. This is 
a fortunate thing when we are on the wrong 
track, but a very unfortunate thing when we 
happen to be on the right one. And the unfortu- 
nates are many. Josephs are scarce. Most of us 
make very zigzag journeys. Our ways go and 
come and crook about after the manner of Israel 
in the wilderness. We slip back from God and 
duty as if we were climbing ice-hills. Oh, for 
some alpenstock to secure our steps ! May not 
the example of that glorious ancient steadfastness 
serve us in that way ? It shows us that it is pos- 
sible, even in a dense community of sinners, to 
tread the narrow way as march the planets and 
the laws of nature; to maintain high character 
amid low surroundings; to have great piety while 
doing a great business; to stand erect while most 
stoop or fall; to stand alone in the service of God 
when none care to stand with us — to do all this 
for a lifetime as steadily and mightily as the earth 
turns on its axis. Joseph was a miracle of stabil- 
ity; but it was a miracle that can be duplicated 
and reduplicated to any extent. Else why are we 



126 LONG AGO. 

bidden to stand fast in the Lord, to be steadfast, 
immovable, always abounding in the work of the 
Lord? It is a glorious thing to be stable in reli- 
gion. Reeds shaken with the wind, weather- 
cocks that look by turns to every point of the 
compass, tides that ebb and flow, leaning towers 
that are always threatening to fall and but too 
often fulfil their threats, boomerangs that go and 
come — such things have their uses in the natural 
world, but not in the religious. There we want 
stability. And when we find what we want, 
when some Joseph towers before us in the gran- 
deur of his inflexible righteousness, it is to me a 
far grander sight than that of the everlasting hills 
or the eternal stars. 

" Call no man fortunate till he is dead," says 
an ancient sage. This means that no one can tell 
from the present aspects of an event what its final 
bearing on his fortunes will be. Things are 
largely not what they seem. Blessings often come 
disguised as curses, and curses as blessings. The 
possession of pleasant Campania destroyed Hanni- 
bal. Many generals have been ruined by their 
victories. To gain a fortune has often been to 
lose a family. Honors and stations have been 
known to bring with them by far more cares and 
labors and envies and calumnies and contentions 
than they were worth. On the other hand things 
that at first, and it may be for a long time, have a 
frowning aspect often turn out at last very friend- 



FROM MAMRK TO MEMPHIS — JOSEPH. IT] 

ly — in fact our very best friends. The experience 
of Joseph is in point. That gay tunic, those 
pleasant dreams of coming greatness, that excur- 
sion through the beautiful land to look up his bro- 
thers — all these things came to him with inviting 
faces, but they brought a deal of trouble in their 
train. But when he was cast into the pit what 
seemed to him death was really an escape from 
death; when he was sold into slavery, when he 
was dragged into a country remote from home, 
when after a while he was thrown into a prison, 
his circumstances naturally seemed to him to have 
a very ugly look, but they were really successive 
stepping-stones to the promised greatness. Their 
real significance did not appear till from ten to 
twenty years afterwards, and meanwhile that 
seeming football of Providence had great room 
and need for trust. 

And there was good reason for trust in his 
case. Had he not an explicit promise — one sure 
to come to fulfilment at last? Why then borrow 
trouble because the wheels of the chariot tarry ? 
And why should any good man borrow trouble as 
to what the future may bring him? Has he not 
a promise that all things shall work together for 
his good ? All his seeming adversities are sure to 
prove in the long run real prosperities. If he 
goes down into some pit, let him fight with faint- 
heartedness and say, Perhaps this is to keep me 
from some worse evil; at least it will befriend me 



128 LONG AGO. 

in some way or other. If lie is sold into some 
Egypt, let him pluck up heart and say, Perhaps 
this is that I may help the Egyptians and myself 
at the same time; anyhow it will turn to account 
in some way. If he is slandered, and slandered to 
death as Joseph was, let him shake his fist at dis- 
couragement and say, Perhaps this is to open to 
me the door of Mr. Interpreter and set me up in a 
new mission ; at any rate time will show, or eter- 
nity, that God means well by me and makes no 
mistakes as to means. Only let him be sure that 
he is on God's side, and then be sure that all his 
troubles will, sooner or later, turn to triumph. 



V. THE ROD OF GOD. 



Lonj Ago. 



MOSES 
'The Deliverer, 



THE ROD OF GOD— MOSES. I3 1 



K THE ROD OF GOD— MOSES. 

Noah died. The years continued to roll 
round, as they will, whoever dies, nearly a thou- 
sand of them. During this period lived Abraham, 
the founder of the Hebrew nation, his son Isaac, 
his grandson Jacob, his great-grandsons who found- 
ed the twelve Hebrew tribes. These last were 
"driven into Egypt by a famine, where for a time 
they greatly flourished under the patronage of 
their brother Joseph and his successors. Their 
numbers became very large. The Egyptians grew 
jealous. And when at last a king arose who 
knew not Joseph he proceeded to reduce his guests 
to slavery, and even ordered that all their male 
infants should be put to death. In this afflictive 
time Moses was born — Moses, the great lawgiver, 
the greatest and most ancient of historians, the 
prince of human miracle- workers; in short, the 
most venerable and majestic figure in the long 
perspective of Old Testament times. 

We are indebted to Moses himself for nearly 
all we know about him. He left an autobiogra- 
phy. This fact has been called in question by 
some people — as indeed what ancient fact has not? 
But uniform tradition and, above all, the testi- 
mony of Christ, the faithful and true Witness, 



132 LONG AGO. 

; 

make Moses the author of the Pentateuch. What 
matter if he is spoken of in the third person ? So 
is Caesar in his Commentaries. What matter if the 
book has different styles? So has the Anabasis of 
Xenophon. What matter if the book records the 
death of Moses with its circumstances? The added 
passage was accepted by the Jewish Church as 
part of the inspired record. 

But can the autobiography of Moses be relied 
on, considering the many rough ages through 
which it has come down, and considering too 
how prone men are, intentionally or unintention- 
ally, to misrepresent in their own favor? It is 
enough to say that no ages have been rougher 
than those before Christ, and that Christ relied 
on the Law and the Prophets enough to say that 
not one jot or tittle of them should fail. Accord- 
ingly, what Moses tells of his own life and charac- 
ter and times is true in every particular. His 
facts are real facts. His teachings are sound 
teachings. While we are reading his book it is 
not a novel we are reading, but history; not such 
history as sometimes comes to us under that name 
(all mixed up with the guesses and speculations of 
partisans), but pure fact colored after nature, from 
which every grain of tare or chaff has been care- 
fully sifted by divine hands. 

A beautiful child ! A child of three months so 
exceedingly fair that lying in his little ark of bul- 
rushes and lifting up his tearful eyes in mute ap- 



THE ROD OF GOD — MOSES. 133 

peal to the face of the Egyptian princess, her 
heart went out to him with a great leap. No, 
she will not suffer him to drown. No, she 
will not suffer him to be devoured by the riv- 
er monsters. No, she will not suffer him to 
famish. Why, he is a right royal child ! Not 
another such in all Egypt. He shall be mine. 
Here, Jochebed, take him and nurse him for 
me ! 

So the infant Moses went back to his joyful 
mother, went back to get his first impressions of 
things in a godly household. How long he re- 
mained with his mother we are not told; but we 
have reason in Oriental customs to think that it 
was long enough to allow the seeds, at least, of the 
true religion to get imbedded in his life. Who 
can say that such seeds may not enter the child- 
soul with the first dawnings of intelligence, when 
it first sees a mother kneeling and hears a mother 
praying? But after the child Moses had been 
transferred from the cabin to the palace the 
nurse, very likely, was not denied the usual privi- 
lege of an ancient nurse, but kept up communica- 
tion with her boy, he coming often to her, she 
going often to him, perhaps securing some service 
in the royal household that she mi°dit be with 
him the more. So she was able, we may believe, 
to keep him from heathenism, to bring him to the 
fear and service of God, and as he passed into 
youth to keep him safe from the vanities anci 



134 LONG AGO. 

profligacies of a heathen court. She looked after 
what we would now call his Christian education — 
by far the best education a child can receive. Say 
it over after me, O parents — the best education a 
child can receive. 

Of course the son of Pharaoh's daughter was 
given the best learning of Egypt, and that was 
then the best learning in all the world. { ' Of the 
ten portions of wisdom that came into the world, " 
says an old writer, "Egypt had nine." Her 
priests were the teachers of Grecian sages. Her 
art blossomed out into palaces and temples and 
various monuments that are still the wonder of 
the world. Her science, as shown in architecture, 
husbandry, manufactures, commerce, and war, 
was unrivalled. So young Moses had the best 
teachers and opportunities of his time. He im- 
proved his opportunities. Manhood found him 
learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, also, 
mighty in word and in deed. It would appear 
from this, as well as from tradition, that he was 
as remarkable for personal prowess, executive 
ability, and weighty speech as for knowledge: 
a well-rounded man, a man fit for anything to 
which he might be summoned, a man fit to gov- 
ern what was perhaps the most difficult and vexa- 
tious nation that the sun ever shone upon. For 
he had at the bottom of things solid moral founda- 
tions that had stood the strain of great tempta- 
tions, and on these a grand structure of faculties 



THE ROD OF GOD— MOSES. 135 

and accomplishments that rose towards heaven 
higher than the Pyramids. 

In and out, here and there, for forty years — 
perhaps governing provinces, sitting in council 
chambers, leading armies, certainly ripening in 
all his intellectual provinces and moral forces as 
slowly ripened the divine plans. We have to be 
patient with God as to time, as he has to be pa- 
tient with us as to character. But at last the 
clock of providence struck a warning. Moses 
thought it was the hour that struck. Pharaoh 
did not hear; perhaps nobody heard save the 
adopted son of Pharaoh. One day it was borne 
in upon that son that he must be one thing or the 
other; that he must not any longer live a divided 
life; that he must make an election between the 
lot of a Pharaoh and that of a Hebrew. Which lot 
shall he choose? Behold a crisis! such as comes 
to every man sooner or later. Right or wrong, 
true or false, the people of God or the people of 
Egypt — which shall it be? Now the balance 
trembles. Now the moment is big with fate. 
We look this way and that; we take account of 
advantages and disadvantages; Satan pleads for 
his side and God pleads for his. It is the very, 
very old way, the way of some three thousand 
years ago. Moses looked at both sides. On the 
one hand his eye took in palaces and sovereign- 
ties and riches and pleasures: on the other hand 
he saw cabins, serfdoms, vagrancies, hardships of 



136 



LONG AGO. 



all sorts. It was a supreme moment. But the 
supreme man was equal to it. He chose to suffer 
affliction with the people of God rather than en- 
joy the pleasures of sin for a season, counting the 
reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures 
in Egypt. How much it cost him to make this 
decision we are not expressly told; but my thought 
of the man is so large that I cannot well fancy 
him as long hesitating between two opinions, and 
then slowly and with many a backward look com- 
ing to his decision. On the contrary, I seem to 
see the question settled as soon as started, the 
great will sweeping to its work as some great bil- 
low with the storm behind it ^oes towards the 
shore, or as some mighty eagle swoops to his 
quarry. However this may be, it is certain that 
this is the way that you and I and everybody 
should choose the good part that cannot be taken 
from us. So great will be our recompense of re- 
ward. 

Having made his election, Moses proceeded to 
act accordingly. Had he not done so his election 
would have been hollow, mere superficies, a 
worthless shell, just as is every so-called Chris- 
tian decision which leaves a man acting just as 
it found him. "By their fruits ye shall know 
them." So we know Moses. He stood forth in 
defence of his people. He tried to right their 
wrongs. In ways not revealed he so acted in 
their behalf that he had a right to suppose that 



THE ROD OF GOD — MOSES. 137 

they understood him to be a fast friend and that 
God by his hand would deliver them. But they 
understood not. He found himself premature. 
His zeal had outrun the ripeness of the people, 
and, indeed, the divine purpose. A very ancient 
mistake, and a very modern one too. Who has 
not known people to run before they were sent? 
Who has not, at some time, wanted to "hurry 
up" providence and found it very hard waiting 
till the clock should strike ? 

Moses had to wait another forty years. But 
he had so committed himself on the side of God 
and his people that it was no longer safe for him 
to wait in Egypt. So he fled from Memphis and 
midday to Midian and midnight; and he who 
had lived all his life in a palace of sculptured 
stone, ridden in royal chariots, and seen men 
prostrating themselves right and left as he passed, 
found himself in the wilderness, with the heavens 
for a tent and stripped of everything but his man- 
hood and his religion. "He has seen better 
days," thought Jethro as he looked upon him. 
He took him into his service. He gave him 
flocks to keep. And, finally, when he had found 
what a faithful and capable servant a wise prince 
could be, he gave him his daughter. 

"Where is the son of Pharaoh's daughter?" 
said the Egyptians. "Where is our friend 
Moses?" said groaning Israel. Nobody could 
answer. Dead, for aught his old acquaintance 



*3 8 LONG AGO. 

knew. And as year melted into year and no 
news of him came, his name gradually ceased to 
be spoken in Egypt and perhaps even the memory 
of him almost passed away. He was buried, 
though not dead. In the depths of the wilder- 
ness he lived his humble life and did his humble 
duties. Was he discontented ? Was the contrast 
too great for him? Did he feel as if his great 
faculties and superb education had been thrown 
away? Perhaps he said, "If the Lord can wait, 
so can I. If the Lord wants me, he knows where 
to find me. Meanwhile I will take care of these 
sheep. I will do as well as I know how the busi- 
ness at hand, however humble. Have I no re- 
sources within myself? Must I be miserable be- 
cause I am no longer on a pedestal ? Am I at a 
loss what to do with myself just as soon as the 
roar of Thebes and Memphis has died away in 
the distance? God forbid! Welcome, solitude. 
Now I can think. Now I have abundant time to 
commune with nature and God. And perhaps 
God will set me to writing for him something that 
the world will not willingly let die — say a history 
of the earlier times of the world, a Genesis that 
shall instruct all the ages to come. Yes, I will 
be content and will bide my time. If God wants 
me elsewhere he will send for me. I will bide 
my time." 

And he bided a long time, a very long time. 
It would have worn out the patience of most men. 



the: rod of god — moses. 139 

But it was not time wasted. Before, he had the 
discipline of society; now, he had that of solitude; 
before, the discipline of public and official life; 
now, that of a private and domestic one; before, 
such discipline as comes from the schools, from 
the management of great affairs, from large deal- 
ings with human nature; now, such discipline as 
shows itself in faith and humility and patience 
and fortitude and resignation. Is not this latter 
discipline of some value ? Alas for most men if it 
is not, for it is about the only discipline they have. 
So the man Moses was himself rounding out while 
God was rounding out the fulness of time. 

The time of his waiting was so long that the 
exile almost lost sight of his mission. The means 
came to swallow up the end. That quiet domes- 
tic and shepherd life was so comfortable, he so 
relished the eloquent silences and solitudes amid 
which nearly half a century had been passed, that 
he grew reluctant to have any change. So when 
the hour really struck the man was not readily 
forthcoming. u Come now, I will send thee into 
Egypt," said God to him out of the flaming bush. 
What answer ? Did he promptly throw down his 
shepherd's crook, tighten his girdle, and with 
face on fire say, " Yes, Lord; this is just what I 
have been waiting and longing: for these two- 
score years"? Nothing of the sort. He wants 
to be excused. He asks for a substitute. He 
pleads incompetency. Just as if the Lord did not 



I 4° LONG AGO. 

know all about him, as if the Lord was not able 
to qualify even a stone to suitably represent him 
at the Egyptian court. Is this really Moses, or is 
it somebody else in his shape ? Well, it is some- 
body else for the moment. Men are not always 
themselves. Moses was not himself when he 
said, u Send by whom thou wilt send." 

But he soon came to himself. God insisted. 
He promised his servant all the help he might 
need for the work assigned him, as he does to 
every servant. Of course Moses yielded. What 
else could he do? What else does any good man 
do when he finds that the Lord insists on his 
doing some unpalatable thing? Obedience is the 
first law of piety. 

Now began the great mission in earnest. All 
that had gone before was mere scaffolding. The 
fugitive went back to Pharaoh with the message 
of God on his lips and the rod of God in his hand. 
When the one failed he plied the other. Ten times 
the stroke fell; ten times the whole Egyptian land 
writhed under terrible judgments. The last of 
these, which took away the first-born of Egypt, 
from the serf-child to the heir-apparent, completely 
broke down for the time the stubborn king. ' ' Get 
you out," he cried, u as speedily as possible!" 
And out they went with all their belongings; nay, 
even loaded with presents from their affrighted 
and hurrying masters. No Red Sea could stop 
them — make a dry path for them, ye depths ! No 



THE ROD OF GOD — MOSES. 141 

backsliding Pharaoh, following hard after them, 
could stop them — bury his whole force of chariots 
and horsemen for ever out of sight, ye imminent 
walls of water ! Now on into the wilderness, ye 
chosen people, under your chosen leader, after the 
pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by 
night; on for forty more years, when less than 
forty days would have sufficed for a less vexatious 
people; fed with bread from heaven, drinking 
water from the rock, wearing clothes that never 
wore out, seeing Sinai smoking and flaming and 
quaking with the presence of the law-giving Je- 
hovah, helped by many miracles and punished by 
perhaps as many more, dropping in the wilder- 
ness a whole misbehaving generation — so at 
length they come to the border of the Promised 
Land. Through all the zigzag wanderings of the 
Hebrew millions Moses towers above them as the 
chief figure. He marshalled the host, he gave 
the laws, he wrought most of the miracles; in 
fine, he was the go-between for the twelve tribes 
and their God. He was faithful in all his house. 
He was meek above all men. And yet at the 
waters of Meribah he was so provoked into sin 
by that most provoking of all nations that he was 
not allowed to enter the Holy Land. He might 
have only a distant view of it. Was his case pe- 
culiar? Was there ever a sin, even a pardoned 
one, that did not shut the sinner out of some place 
of privilege and enjoyment ? 



142 LONG AGO. 

Behold the white tents of Israel necking the 
plain at the foot of Nebo ! From them in the 
early morning goes forth a solitary man. His 
eye is bright, his step firm, his form erect; he 
moves with the easy majesty and strength of a 
king in his prime. Who would think him to be 
carrying the burden of one hundred and twenty 
years? Yet so it is. The vicissitudes of life, 
the toils of war, the cares of state, the studies of 
the sage, the perplexities and activities of the 
man of affairs, the excitements of the most mar- 
vellous history that mere man ever had, have left 
him with eye undimmed and natural force unaba- 
ted. But now the last day has come. He knows 
it, and has settled his affairs, appointed his suc- 
cessor, said his adieus, and now calmly turns his 
back on the host for which he has so long unself- 
ishly lived and prayed and suffered. He proceeds 
to ascend the mountain. At every tent door the 
people stand watching, with tears in their eyes 
and in their hearts. They will never see his 
like again. At last he stands on the summit and 
looks around. What a glorious panorama ! He 
needs no telescope; God brings distant things 
nigh. He needs no voluble native to stand by 
him and explain the landscape; God is his inter- 
preter. His anointed eyes see "all the land of 
Gilead unto Dan, and all Naphtali, and the land 
of Ephraim and Manasseh, and all the land of 
Judah, unto the utmost sea, and the south and 



THE ROD OF GOD — MOSES. 143 

the plain of the valley of Jericho, the city of 
palm-trees, unto Zoar. ,) Then he closes his eyes. 
Softly as the infant loses himself in sleep or as the 
day melts away into night, he passes away. Men 
would say he is dead. I say he has passed away. 
Here lies his body, it is true, motionless and un- 
breathing.; but Moses himself has sailed away on 
starry though invisible pinions, and, without any 
battle, is welcomed into another Promised Land, 
in comparison with which the goodly land that 
flowed with milk and honey was a desert. As for 
the body that he lived in for so many pilgrim 
years, God took care of that. He so buried it 
that no man knows the sepulchre to this day. 
Had it been known, there is reason to think it 
would long since have been rifled, and the pre- 
cious bones of the saint, encased in gold and gems, 
would have been scattered over the world as ob- 
jects of idolatrous veneration. Such is human 
nature. Men are in the habit of killing prophets 
while they live and of deifying them when dead. 
Commonly the biography of a man ends when 
his body dies. But it is not so in the case of Mo- 
ses. He has reappeared at least once since his 
so-called death. On the mount of transfiguration 
Moses and Elijah appeared in glory, talking with 
Jesus. Many ages had passed since that scene on 
Pisgah, but lo, now he was back again in the very 
heart of the country which he was forbidden to 
enter in the flesh, full of glorious life, and plainly 



144 LONG AGO. 

in far brighter condition than of old. Of old, in- 
deed, his face once shone so brightly that Israel 
could not look steadfastly upon it. But that was 
a transient shining. A few hours later and the 
brightness was all gone : the face was become as 
the faces of other men. But as soon as the saint 
died the old shining came back again, came back 
to stay, came back with added splendors. What 
the three disciples saw on Hermon or Tabor was 
not a pageant-Moses gotten up for the occasion, 
but Moses as he had been ever since he had 
dropped the veil of flesh, and Moses as he will 
continue to be long after the sun itself has grown 
dim. That close communion with God that 
made his face to shine on Horeb is now perma- 
nent and complete on the heavenly hills. This 
consideration alone is enough to show that the 
glory of Moses is a glory that remaineth. The 
meteor has become a fixed star; or rather, the flash 
has deepened into a nightless day. Strong as 
this language is, it is still language within bounds; 
for the Bible uses as strong of every common be- 
liever. "Then shall the righteous shine forth as 
the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Who 
hath ears to hear, let him hear." 

"And their works do follow them." The 
works of Moses have followed him in a wonderful 
degree. Through the inspired works he has left 
his influence has been growing from age to age, 
and is now telling on the world more powerfully 



THE ROD OF GOD — MOSES. 145 

than it ever did while he was in the flesh. In the 
sea of humanity he was not merely a great billow 
whose nplift sent out agitations to every shore : 
his influence has followed the law of the avalanche 
and has mightily gathered volume and speed in 
its descent through the ages. Moses once belonged 
to Israel ; he now belongs to the world. His ex- 
ample, his words, and his deeds are going into 
every language. Whoever hears of Christ will hear 
of him. Whoever reveres Christ will revere him. 

I wish to emphasize certain thoughts which 
have been already incidentally mentioned. 

1. The history of Moses illustrates the force of 
early impressions. 

According to Eastern custom he remained 
with his nurse till he was old enough to be 
placed in the hands of those who were to super- 
intend his formal Egyptian education. Indeed, 
for some time after that, and perhaps always, the 
nurse had special privileges of free communica- 
tion with her foster son. He probably went often 
to her and she came often to him. Alive to the 
great position the child was to occupy and the 
great influence he might be expected to exert, re- 
membering what Joseph in a like high place had 
been able to do for his people, aware too of the 
great spiritual perils the child would have to meet 
in a heathen court, his parents and the elders of 
Israel doubtless exerted themselves to implant at 
the earliest possible moment the seeds of good 

A -:o. IO 



14° LONG AGO. 

character and of his ancestral religion. How else 
can we account for the character and faith we find 
him possessing when come to maturity? He did 
not get such things from the court of Pharaoh — 
that is certain; nor from the priests of Isis — that 
is certain. The fact is, his pious friends must 
have looked after the beginnings of things in Mo- 
ses. They took time by the forelock. They 
carefully preoccupied the ground for God. And 
the result was that God never lost the ground. 
When the boy passed from the hut of his parents 
to the halls of the Pharaohs, from the presence of 
a spiritual religion to the gorgeous ceremonials of 
an idolatry that spoke only to the senses, from 
the instructions of uncourtly and unlearned pa- 
rents to the schools of the priest-sages at whose 
feet Greece sat to learn wisdom, he was fore- 
armed. There may have been a strain for a time. 
He saw Israel and Israel's faith looked down 
upon by all the prosperous and noble. Error and 
vice put on purple and gems and painted their 
faces skilfully and voiced themselves like sirens 
to captivate him. Moreover, all the influence of 
gratitude and worldly interest strove to make him 
thoroughly Egyptian in faith and feeling and hab- 
its. By identifying himself fully with the people 
who had adopted him he might expect to stand 
permanently among the proudest of that proud 
land, if not to occupy its throne — at that time the 
most brilliant throne in the world. We can hard- 



THE ROD OF GOD — MOSES. 147 

ly conceive of both religion and patriotism more 
beset than they were in the case of young Moses. 
But he came out of the seven-fold furnace without 
the smell of fire upon him. The power of early 
impressions was greater than the power of Egypt. 
See what parents now can do for their children by 
starting a religious nurture at the earliest possible 
moment ! I^et them put the good seed into the 
ground while it is soft and quick with spring. If 
the world had more imitators of Moses' parents it 
would have more imitators of Moses. 

2. Great divine favor did not exempt Moses from 
a large measure of trial. 

When we first see him it is as a foundling, 
weeping among the flags of the monster-haunted 
Nile. Then we see him fleeing his country, 
leaving behind him princely rank, riches, honors, 
and modes of living to which he had been accus- 
tomed from childhood. He went out bare of all 
things but life. He stole in fear and haste along 
the land through which he had been charioted in 
splendor. An exile of nearly half a century fol- 
lowed — an exile during which, probably, his 
father and mother had to die without his loving 
presence and ministrations; an exile which could 
hardly have been without many dreary features to 
one accustomed to the stirring life of the Egyp- 
tian capital in the days of the great Sesostris, and 
who was conscious of powers that fitted him for 
the grandest theatres of activitv. After the exo- 



148 LONG AGO, 

dus, as the leader of a stiff-necked and fractious 
people, he found himself loaded with cares and 
vexations that knew little respite. Murmurings, 
reproaches, insurrections, idolatries — what a life 
the poor man had ! One wonders that he did not 
give up his troublesome sceptre in disgust. Al- 
most any other man would have done it. Most 
people would think twice before accepting forty 
years of vagrancy in the great and terrible wilder- 
ness — let alone other troubles. 

Yet this much-enduring man was peculiarly 
dear to heaven. He was allowed a fulness and 
freedom of intercourse with Jehovah granted to no 
other mere man in all the human history — face 
to face with God as a man talketh with his friend. 
When no other intercessions could avail, those of 
Moses saved Israel from utter extinction by divine 
wrath. When Aaron and Miriam presumed to 
rate themselves as high in the favor of God as 
their younger brother, how signally they were re- 
buked ! ' ' Hear now my words ! If there be a 
prophet among you, I the Lord will make myself 
known to him in a vision and will speak to him 
in a dream. My servant Moses is not so, who is 
faithful in all my house. With him will I speak 
mouth to mouth, even apparently, and not in dark 
speeches, and the similitude of the Lord shall he 
behold : wherefore, then, were ye not afraid to 
speak against my servant Moses ?" And Miriam 
went forth a leper as white as snow. 



THE ROD OF GOD— MOSES. 149 

Very dear was the Hebrew leader to God ; but 
it was no part of the divine plan to carry him or 
any other saint to the skies on flowery beds of 
ease, Job's friends to the contrary notwithstand- 
ing. The divine love did not show itself in 
screening its object from trial, but in giving him 
grace to bear it. His sky must have its clouds, 
his path its thorns, his cup its infusion of bitter- 
ness, his gold its purifying fires. Discipline, 
this is the key to divine providence in this world. 
So when we see a man bowed with trouble, his 
purposes crossed, his way hedged up, cares and 
crosses of many kinds pressing him heavily, we 
are not to conclude that God is against him. For 
aught his trials say to the contrary, he may be 
the dearest of all men to God. The heart of God 
often smiles where his providence frowns. Joseph 
in the pit or in the dungeon is on his way to the 
premiership of Egypt. u Many are the afflictions 
of the righteous," and yet " the Lord loveth the 
righteous and his ears are open to their cry." 

3. The life of Moses illustrates the wisdom of 
that Providence that presides over every life. 

Every life, however obscure, is arranged in all 
its circumstances by Him who numbers the hairs 
of our heads; so we are told and so we are bound 
to believe, though we cannot see. But some lives 
manifest this wise providence more than others. 
The life of Moses is one of these manifesting lives. 
In it we can see that adaptation of means to ends, 



I50 LONG AGO. 

that fit arrangement of circumstances to secure a 
great object, which in most cases we are obliged 
to take on trust. 

The mission of Moses was to conduct Israel 
out of Egypt and to found them as a religious na~ 
tion. So he was born a Hebrew. None other 
could have commanded in the same degree the 
sympathy and confidence of Hebrews, nor have 
loved them so well and patiently. He was sent 
into the royal family of Egypt on the footing of a 
son; so he enjoyed the best advantages of secular 
education which the world at that time had. 
Rameses the Great, the Sesostris of Greek his- 
tory, whose mummy has just been found, was one 
of the ablest sovereigns and warriors of antiquity. 
His court was the focus of learning as well as of 
power. His priests were sages, his art an aston- 
ishment, his wars triumphs. Nowhere else could 
the elect youth have had such wide and varied 
culture in art, in science, and in arms. I say u in 
arms;" for it is not likely that what was then 
deemed so important a part of education was re- 
fused to Moses. Josephus says it was not refused, 
and that to his other accomplishments the He- 
brew prince added that of a great general. He 
was mighty in word; that is, a great counsellor. 
He was mighty in deed; that is, a great soldier. 
So he became fitted to lead the armies of Israel 
and to skilfully manage affairs of state. Trained 
to statesmanship and command, he entered on his 



THE ROD OF GOD— MOSES. 151 

mission as the leader of his people with nothing 
of the crndeness and awkwardness of a novice 
suddenly raised to a great position from the lower 
walks of life. He was w T ont to be looked up 
to and obeyed alike by Egyptians and Hebrews. 
All these circumstances were of great account in 
qualifying him to deal with so difficult a people 
as he was to have in charge. Stiff-necked and 
uncircumcised in heart and ears, they needed at 
the helm a strong and practised hand. This hand 
they would not have had unless Moses had been 
brought up in a court instead of a brick-field; 
and he would not have been brought up in a 
court unless the daughter of Pharaoh had gone 
down to the river at the critical moment when the 
infant was exposed; and perhaps she would not 
have cared to preserve him had not God gifted 
him with exceeding beauty and made him to ap- 
peal to her heart with eloquent tears. So divine 
Providence in due time sculptured out a great 
national leader. 

But it was not enough for Moses to become a 
great national leader. While getting all secular 
accomplishments in the company of the great and 
cultured he must be kept from their misbelief and; 
vices. It was even more important to his mission 
that he should be good than that he should be 
great. To secure the goodness without sacrificing 
the greatness, this was the problem for Providence 
to solve. Behold the solution ! Let the princess 



152 LONG AGO. 

find it convenient to send the foundling to its own 
mother to be nursed. This step secured for the 
true God and his service the first impressions of 
childhood. These with their customary power 
conducted the boy, the youth, and the man un- 
harmed through court and camp, through tem- 
ples and schools. Preoccupied and forearmed for 
God, he steadily resisted all the evils that nested 
in and about his exalted station, and became great 
without ceasing to be good. 

When Moses had gotten out of Egypt all the 
accomplishments that Egypt had to give, the wise 
Providence broke up the nest of the young eagle 
and made him fly to Midian to get another sort of 
education. In the pastoral solitudes let Moses 
commune with nature and his own heart. While 
waiting for the slow-moving wheels of the exodus 
let him learn patience and trust. laving the sim- 
ple life of the desert, let him gradually slough off 
the self-indulgent tastes and ways of the city and 
the palace, and become a still hardier and 'health- 
ier specimen of manhood, and still abler to bear 
the strain of the great charge about to come upon 
him. And here too let him study Genesis and 
primeval history, with God himself for the in- 
spiring Teacher. Is not history instructive to a 
statesman and legislator, especially history out of 
which all chaff of guesses and falsities and spec- 
ulations has been carefully winnowed? Further, 
lest his piety should suffer from unfavorable com- 



THE ROD OE GOD — MOSES. 153 

panionship during his long exile, lie must be 
brought into the family of a prince of Midian who 
seems also to have been a servant of the true God. 
A refined and godly home is a first-class security 
to everything good in a man. A daughter of 
Egypt as wife would have embarrassed his mis- 
sion; so God gave him the daughter of Jethro. 
And so the years wheeled themselves slowly away, 
adding venerableness to his aspect, experience to 
his culture, ripeness to his wisdom, prudence to 
his energy; in short, giving last touches to his 
preparation, until it stood complete before the 
burning bush which summoned him to his great 
work. 

I have said that the life of Moses throws light 
on that wise Providence that presides over every 
life, over yours and mine. That is just it. It is 
one of the sublimities of the divine government 
that it looks after the career of a slave as carefully 
as after that of a king. Not a sparrow falls to the 
ground without our Heavenly Father: and what 
are called the "happenings" of your lot and of 
mine, O friend, have all passed under the sceptre 
of him who marshalled the life of the o^reat He- 
brew and who marshals all the stars. Each of us 
has his own special mission as truly as Moses had 
his. The universe is a great machine designed 
to work out a definite result. It includes some 
parts that are large and shining and in conspicu- 
ous positions; it also includes parts so small and 



154 LONG AGO. 

inconspicuous as to escape the notice of every eye 
but its Maker's — a little wheel, a little pin, a lit- 
tle invisible something whose absence would yet 
throw the whole whirling mass into more or less 
of derangement. And that little something is the 
smallest man in the smallest Nazareth of the 
smallest country on the face of the globe. What 
is mere size or show to God ? His eye is on the 
least as well as on the greatest. His hand is just 
as busy in the raindrops as in great Jupiter. 
What matters it to his omniscience and omnipo- 
tence if my life is only a raindrop and my orbit 
only an inch in diameter? Will this embarrass 
his superintendence? No, let no man, however 
small, count himself as lying outside of the 
scheme of divine Providence. What concerns us 
is to see that we make it possible for that Provi- 
dence, from whose grasp nothing can escape, to 
deal with us in a friendly manner. Then shall 
we rejoicingly find that u the steps of a good man 
are ordered by the Lord" and that "he gives his 
angels charge over him to keep him in all his 
ways. ' ' 

4. It seems that Moses is no friend to any scheme 
of philosopJiy, science, history (whatever name yon 
please to give), that makes little or nothing of God as 
the Former a7id Governor of all things. 

There is a philosophy, so called, that tries to 
account for the universe on purely natural prin- 
ciples, affirming that the heavenly bodies with all 



THE ROD OF GOD— MOSES. 1 55 

their wonderful arrangements, the various sorts 
of plants and animals with all their exquisite 
mechanisms, and even man himself with all his 
intellectual and moral belongings — that all these 
came to be what they are from eternal dead atoms 
without any help whatever from a personal God. 
Another scheme allows God to introduce the ele- 
ments of things far back in the past (the farther 
back the better), and then dismisses him from all 
further concern with what he has made: the clock 
has been wound up and set going; now let it run 
on of itself till it runs down some millions of years 
hence. So, since the remote beginning, there 
has been no occasion whatever for the supernat- 
ural, not even in the history of mankind, which 
is simply an unfolding of the natural forces and 
laws originally hidden in the atoms of matter. 
The one scheme discounts God altogether; the 
other pushes him back from us such infinite 
leagues that the sun becomes a faint star whose 
very existence is questionable. Does any reader 
of the books of Moses need to be told that his 
philosophy is very different from either of these 
schemes? Holders of them never did, and never 
will, express themselves as Moses does about the 
origin of things and the history of mankind. He 
distinctly traces the great departments of nature 
to successive divine fiats. In the foreground of 
all his historic pictures, personal and national, 
stands the great form of Jehovah, not as a simple 



6 LONG AGO. 



spectator of what is going- on, but as a mighty 
actor whom nobody can afford to ignore. Other 
philosophers are all the while telling us about 
Nature; the Hebrew philosopher is all the while 
telling us about the Supernatural. Other histo- 
rians only tell us what men do: from reading 
them one would not discover that there is any 
superintending, managing God at all among men ; 
the Hebrew historian shows us all events as un- 
folding from the hollow of a divine hand. A di- 
vine will is the pivotal-centre of events. A di- 
vine arm is bare and mightily predominant among 
all busy human arms. So plain men have always 
understood Moses. So unsophisticated men un- 
derstand him to-day. And so he is understood by 
the more logical and intelligent arguers for a god- 
less universe, and hence they discredit him. We 
discredit them. We say to them, You and Moses 
do not agree as to how the universe was made 
and is governed; and if we must make an election 
between you and Moses as guide to what is true, 
we altogether prefer Moses — Moses with the halo 
of inspiration about his head and the rod of God 
in his hand; Moses, to whose entire reliability 
Christ himself gave the weight of his sovereign 
authority. 

5. It appears from the life of Moses that a dis- 
pensation of miracles does not necessarily, nor even 
probably, overcome unbelief and irreligion. 

Some fancy that even a single miracle, if they 



THE ROD OF GOD — MOSES. 1 57 

could only have it, would set them up immovably 
in a religious life. " Let a shining angel appear 
in the sky and proclaim God, and I would be no 
longer godless. Let a mighty voice fall to me 
from heaven, saying of Christ, ' This is my be- 
loved Son; hear him,' and I would be no longer 
Christless. Let some dead man return to me and 
preach repentance, and I would repent." I am 
not so sure of that. It appears that a whole nebu- 
la of miracles was not enough to turn vast multi- 
tudes in the days of Moses from their sins. Pha- 
raoh remained hard despite the ten sore judg- 
ments. Despite them the Egyptians remained 
idolaters. As for Israel, though their fetters 
were loosed by the same great miracle, though 
God clave the Red Sea in twain before them, 
though a miraculous pillar guided all their jour- 
neyings, though for many years they drank and 
ate and were clothed by miracles, though God 
came out of his wonted silence and, amid flame 
and earthquake, spoke to them his law in articu- 
late thunder, though they, as it were, trod mira- 
cles and breathed miracles and ate and drank 
miracles and had amon«- them the standing mira- 
cle of a visible divine glory for nearly half a cen- 
tury, yet during all this time of wonders they 
were, every now and then, misbehaving in the 
grossest ways — even to the point of idolatry. "A 
stubborn and rebellious generation, a generation 
that set not their heart aright and whose spirit 



158 LONG AGO. 

was not steadfast with God. They kept not the 
covenant of God and refused to walk in his law 
and forgat his works and his wonders that he had 
showed them." And all despite severe chastise- 
ments from time to time. In fact they carried 
their misconduct so far that only two of the gen- 
eration that came out of Egypt could be allowed 
to enter the Holy Land. Moses wondered at their 
unbelief and perverseness; and so do we. 

Wonderful misconduct — and how instructive! 
Through it, as through an open window, we look 
in upon the immense depravity of human nature. 
And we see also that people may be making a 
great mistake who suppose that if they could only 
have some rousing and indisputable miracle in 
favor of God and religion they would be sure to 
repent. The Hebrews had, not one such miracle, 
but many a one. They had, not far-off miracles 
brought to them by a succession of reporters, but 
such as their own senses could judge of and know 
beyond doubt to be genuine. They had, not mir- 
acles that came and went like a flash, but such as 
kept blazing on among them for a lifetime and 
which they could study at infinite leisure. They 
had, not miracles that were barely over the bor- 
der line between the natural and the supernatural, 
but such as could by no possible ingenuity be 
credited to mere nature, such as lay infinite 
leagues away from her and invoked God with 
both hands uplifted and with a voice that has 



THE ROD OF GOD — MOSES. 1 59 

readied all the ages. Yet, with all this stupend- 
ous supernaturalism appealing to them, they, al- 
most to a man, found it possible to be stubbornly 
unbelieving and wicked. And you, who think 
that if you could only see a single genuine mira- 
cle you would be sure to believe and act accord- 
ingly — you, who think that if, on entering the 
next state and finding the teachings of the Bible 
confirmed by a still more impressive supernatural- 
ism than we have at present, you would, if proba- 
tion could be continued, be sure to swiftly change 
life and character — see you that your view is by 
no means warranted by the history of Moses. If 
such a dense and protracted rain of miracles was 
ineffectual to soften the hardness of the Hebrews, 
why may not a drop or two of the same rain be 
ineffectual to soften you? Men can stand out 
against miracles as well as against sermons. Mir- 
acles, like sermons, are capable of going wide of 
their mark. They can be explained away just as 
plainest Bible can be explained away. You can 
credit them to Beelzebub. You can credit them 
to occult natural forces. You can significantly 
hint that there is such a thing as jugglery, and 
may be such a thing as magic. In short, there is 
power enough in a human "I don't want to" to 
defy any amount of eloquence, whether it comes 
from divine lips or from divine hands, whether 
in this world or in the next. Be content with 
such evidence as you have, my friend; depend 



l60 LONG AGO. 

upon it this is better for you in your circumstan- 
ces than signs and wonders would be. My belief 
is that "if you hear not Moses and the prophets, 
neither would you be persuaded though one rose 
from the dead." 



VI CURSE ME ISRAEL. 



ir 



BALAAM 

The TJnvvilling Pro 
pliet. 



BALAAM. 163 



VI. BALAAM. 

The country between the Euphrates and the 
Tigris is remarkable for many reasons. It is 
grandly historic. Here the race began. Here it 
began the second time in Noah and his sons. 
Here Abraham was born and spent his youth, 
here Rebecca lived till her marriage with Isaac, 
here Jacob took refuge for more than fourteen 
years from his brother Esau, here may have lived 
Job, the prince of sufferers and the prince of saints. 
And here, too, was the seat of the great Assyrian 
and Babylonian Empires which figure so proudly 
in ancient history. In early times it deserved to 
be called the garden of the world. It was known 
under the name of Padan-Aram, or fruitful Syria. 
A charming climate; fat pastures; the sunny 
slopes which the vine loves; mountains with 
their grandeurs, their fountains, and their forests; 
plains rich in all the grains and fruits and flowers 
— the fertile, the picturesque, the salubrious, the 
beautiful, the sublime made their home in delight- 
ful Mesopotamia, especially in the more northern 
and elevated portion. It was here dwelt Balaam. 
"They hired Balaam of Mesopotamia to curse 
thee." u Balak, the king of Moab, hath brought 
me from Aram, out of the mountains of the east." 



164 LONG AGO. 

So Balaam was fortunate in the place where his lot 
was cast. 

He was also fortunate in the time when he 
lived. There had not been so illustrious a time 
since the creation of man — one so full of divine 
wonders, communications, and institutions — and 
after him no such time occurred again till the 
advent of Christ. He was the contemporary of 
Moses and Joshua, in whose days the heavens 
rained stars of the first magnitude till all the re- 
gion to the west of him was ablaze with signs and 
wonders. In his day, too, fairly began in heaven- 
ly pomp and warranty the Old Dispensation with 
its written revelation and its constellation of posi- 
tive religious institutions which should make the 
glory of the next fifteen hundred years. It was a 
good time, a glorious time for the evidences, a 
grand time as to illumination and opportunity. 
Yes, it was a good time to live in — this resurrec- 
tion period of the old world when the great order 
of ages began afresh, when God in shining ways 
came nearer to men than ever before. In Mesopo- 
tamia and Midian and Moab, the frontiers of the 
Egypt and of the "great and terrible wilderness " 
where the great miracles of the exodus were 
wrought — it was here at this privileged time lived 
Balaam. 

Balaam was also fortunate in his race and fam- 
ily. He was descended from Shem. His brother 
was king of Edom. His own name signifies Lord 



BALAAM. 165 

of the people. In origin and rank Balaam was 
princely. He was zoned about with friends, com- 
forts, honors, resources. He had abundant leisure 
and facilities of all sorts for great usefulness. 
Every school of knowledge, every sphere of gra- 
cious activity, every instrument of personal cul- 
ture that existed in those times and countries, wise 
Egypt included, was within his reach. He was 
bom to these things. Instead of spending the 
greater part of his life in acquiring them, they 
were the capital and vantage-ground with which 
his life started. He was a child of fortune. He 
belonged to the elect of Providence. Palaces and 
coronets, Tyrian robes and Egyptian chariots, 
came to him without his asking — simply by blood 
and birth. As men estimate, he was one of the 
fortunate few instead of the unfortunate many. 
He might have been, like millions of others, a 
child of Ham. He might have first seen the light 
in the hut of a fellah and have dragged a fellah's 
chain all his days. But Providence smiled upon 
him. The sky was blue and the sunshine lay 
bright and warm over his cradle. In the matter 
of race and family his lot was superior to that of 
ninety-nine hundredths of his fellow-creatures. 

So, also, as to his talents. Balaam was a 
genius. His apostrophes to Israel, found in the 
23d and 24th chapters of Numbers, are some of 
the sublimest compositions in any language. 
There is greatness in almost every sentence — 



166 LONG AGO. 

originality, breadth, and splendor of conception 
beyond all Greek, beyond all Roman fame. If 
any say that this was not Balaam, but the Holy 
Ghost speaking through him, I answer that it 
was both Balaam and the Holy Ghost — the Holy 
Ghost flowing its gold through the great and va- 
rious moulds of Balaam's genius. The prophets 
preserved each his own mental characteristics. 
The divine force within worked these character- 
istics perfectly according to their own nature and 
laws. The various traits of the Scriptures are 
the traits of their various writers, each expressing 
in his own way the perfect will of God, and yet 
so expressing it as to matter and form as to make 
it an infallible and complete rule of religious 
faith and practice for men. Thus Balaam's con- 
tribution to the Bible, though small in amount, 
shows him to have had a mind of the first order. 
He was potentially poet, orator, statesman, sage, 
a man to counsel nations and kings. He was of 
the race of the giants. His mind had the roomy 
magnificence of a palace rather than the features 
of an ordinary dwelling; battlement after battle- 
ment, turret after turret, dome after dome — what 
a wilderness of brave structures! He was one of 
the few men born with great sweeping wings — 
from tip to tip what an outspread! So he came 
on the stage with a double royalty, the royalty of 
birth and the royalty of genius, and the latter 
was the greater. It was a great gift. Well used 



BALAAM. 167 

it was able to do great and blessed things for him- 
self, his generation, and his God. Such a greatly 
capable soul, spacious enough to contain a plane- 
tary revolution, Balaam was highly favored in 
receiving. 

In this world where time and chance happen 
to all, and where the race is not always to the 
swift nor the battle to the strong, such natural 
endowments as crowned Balaam do not always 
give fame and influence to a man, especially 
while he is yet living. Not so, however, in this 
case. Providence, in addition to its other favors, 
allowed Balaam a great name that went abroad 
through many lands and reached the ears of 
kings and was with them a word of reverence 
and power. Monarchs took him into their coun- 
sels. If tradition says truly, he was potent in the 
cabinet of Egypt as well as in that of Moab. We 
know from sources better than the best profane 
tradition that the king of Moab sent to him repeat- 
ed embassies composed of men of the highest rank, 
and sued for his presence and help as essential to 
the safety of the nation. It seems to have been 
currently understood in those days that in Pethor, 
amid the mountains of the east, was living a man 
who for far-seeing sagacity and admirable power 
to realize his wishes had no known equal. "I 
wot," said Balak to him, "that he whom thou 
blessest is blessed, and he whom thou cursest is 
cursed." He held so high a place in the rever- 



l6S LONG AGO, 

ence of men that a word from him was like a law 
or an army. " After his words men spake not 
again and his speech dropped upon them. ' ' God 
built up a golden platform high in the presence 
of the nations and set Balaam thereon and said 
to him, "Stand thou here and do historic things 
and blessed things and things of honorable and 
everlasting renown. Influence the people aright 
Use your great reputation so that the name of the 
son of Beor shall appear with glory in Holy 
Scripture itself and go down embalmed in the 
sweet spices of its praise till the world's last day." 
Such a part is offered to but few. Such an op- 
portunity to impress right royally his own and 
other generations is rarely put into the hands of a 
man. With a fame and personal influence equiv- 
alent to a sceptre, what grand things might not 
Balaam have done for his fellows and his God! 
Surely he was a highly favored man. 

Let us say, further, that, as compared with 
most of those about him, and even with most of 
the wise men of his day, Balaam was highly fa- 
vored in the matter of religious information. He 
knew the true God. He knew enough of him to 
adopt his worship and discard idolatry. The al- 
mighty power and holiness and unchangeableness 
of this great Being he celebrated with most elo- 
quent lips. Our hearts thrill to-day as we read 
his majestic and awful utterances. He was the 
Chrysostom of his age. In addition, he knew 



BALAAM. 169 

that the Hebrews were trie chosen people of God 
and that the entire system of religion which they 
had among them was divine. Above all, he knew 
of Christ to come, that Star that should come out 
of Jacob and that sceptre that should rise out of 
Israel. He seems also to have known of a future 
state; and of that day when the dead, small and 
great, shall stand before God to be judged. In 
short, his religious information could be truly de- 
scribed in such words as these, ' ' He hath said 
who heard the words of God and knew the knowl- 
edge of the Most High, who saw the vision of the 
Almighty." It would be claiming more than can 
be proved were I to say that he knew the main 
religious truth as well as Moses did, or even as 
well as did the common Hebrews, much less as 
well as we do on whom the sun is pouring un- 
clouded noon: but this I may safely say, that, as 
compared with most of those who surrounded him, 
from the serf to the sage, he was in religious mat- 
ters an exceedingly enlightened man. The peo- 
ple all about him were heathen. They were so 
dark-minded as to worship the stones and the 
stars. Compared with such men he was like some 
great mansion brilliantly illuminated for a festi- 
val. " In yonder mansion fair," across the coun- 
tries and the ages, u a hundred lights were glan- 
cing," while the lowly cabins around showed 
scarcely a single taper. The head of Balaam 
stood out of the general darkness as the gilded 



I/O LONG AGO. 

mountain-peak of the morning sometimes stands 
out of the sea of cloud that covers all other ob- 
jects. He was fortunate in this preeminent reli- 
gious knowledge — more fortunate, I ween, than 
he was in the possession of preeminent talents and 
renown: for religious information is the necessary 
outer gate to that best and most glorious of all 
things, a religious character. 

Balaam was also fortunate in the views he 
took of religion as an organisation. To admit the 
leading religious doctrines and duties, and yet to 
scout the church which is merely these doctrines 
and duties in an organized and visible form, is not 
an uncommon thing at the present day. And it 
is a very inauspicious thing. It says that the 
man does not hold religion itself in liking and 
honor. Whoever likes Christianity likes true 
Christians. Whoever is always railing at reli- 
gion as an institution and body-corporate is in a 
bad way. His diagnosis is not hard — no harder 
than is that of a consumptive with his hollow 
cough and nocturnal sweats. He is just as far 
from religion as an inward power as he is from it 
as a church. The Hebrews were the church of 
Balaam's times. They were the organic religion 
of the Old Testament. And if we would see anew 
what the son of Beor thought of them as a church 
let us read anew what he said of them in that 
character in the book of Numbers, under circum- 
stances which were a sufficient warrant for his 



BALAAM. 171 

sincerity. As we read we shall say that beyond all 
doubt Balaam held that ancient church of God in 
profound veneration, judged all worthy members 
of it to be most privileged persons, and expected 
for it a career of brightest honor and success. 
Such views were a vantage-ground — an additional 
step in that ivory flight of steps by which a king 
may go up into the house of the Lord. They 
brought him nearer to religion itself. Whether 

o o 

these honorable views of religion as an institution 
came to Balaam by special revelation or by com- 
mon ways is of no consequence; he was fortunate 
in possessing them. They put him in still closer 
and more hopeful relations with practical religion. 
Good as these views were, Balaam possessed 
something still better. He had just and strong 
feeling on the matter of personal religion. Well 
informed in religion, holding it in signal honor as 
embodied in the people of God, he had the still 
higher good fortune to have a realizing sense of 
its desirableness for himself as a practical matter. 
Hear him: "Let me die the death of the right- 
eous, and let my last end be like his." He was 
in earnest in this. The superior condition of a 
good man in the hour of death deeply impressed 
him. He strongly desired to make that condition 
his own. He wanted to die a good man, and was 
not ashamed to avow as much in the presence of 
wicked men. He realized the importance of not 
leaving the world in his sins. He was profoundly 



172 LONG AGO. 

sensible that the supreme moment must not find 
him an impenitent sinner, and he ardently de- 
sired that it might not. So strong was the desire 
that the presence of a brilliant company of un- 
sympathizing bad men of the highest rank did 
not deter him from expressing it in the strongest 
form. This looks like moral courage of a right 
manly sort. It is full of promise. We feel that 
Balaam is nearer the kingdom of God than he has 
ever been before. Indeed, he seems now to be 
standing just without the gate. A single step 
farther and he is within. God favored the son of 
Beor highly in bringing him so close to salva- 
tion — so close that an angel, so to speak, could 
readily stretch hand across the interval and draw 
him into the ark, as Noah did the dove. 

But brief as is the interval between a zealous 
desire for salvation and salvation itself, the dis- 
tinguishing mercy of God divided it in the case of 
Balaam and led him a half-step nearer the gate of 
life. u If Balak would give me his house full of 
silver and gold I cannot go beyond the word of 
the L,ord my God to do less or more." " Must I 
not take heed to speak that which the L,ord has 
put into my mouth?" Behold at least a partial 
spirit of obedience. On this occasion Balaam 
makes great sacrifices in order to do the will of 
God. He perseveringly withstands great temp- 
tations in the shape of honors and wealth simply 
because God has bidden him. See, the man's cor- 



BALAAM. 173 

rect views and feelings have to some extent been 
carried into action. He has grappled with one 
hard duty and has performed it. The ice is bro- 
ken, a breach is made, and now he has only to con- 
tinue as he has begun, has only to generalize his 
particular obedience into an honest and thorough 
aim at a universal one, in order to be the righteous 
man he would like to die. Will he do it ? That 
remains to be seen ; but in any event he is now at 
a most elect point, a point that shines like a star, 
a point choicer than a throne; a point which, if 
well used, will bring a throne such as no earthly 
king ever sat upon. There is only one point that 
is better, and that is the point of righteousness 
itself in the form of repentance. Balaam was 
favored in being led by the Spirit so far. A 
place so near to heaven as that was full of promise 
and fragrant with heavenly influences. He who 
was so fortunate in so many other features of his 
lot was most fortunate of all in his actually set- 
ting himself somewhat to the task of obedience. 

L,ast of all, Balaam was a prophet. Appa- 
rently, God singled him out from all the Gentiles 
of that time and gave him the glorious gift of in- 
spiration. What a crown was that ! It may 
have been heavy; it may have burned his brow, 
as crowns are apt to do; but yet it was a golden 
crown, shining as only crowns that come from 
heaven can. The omniscient One took possession 
of his faculties. The future unrolled itself before 



174 LONG AGO. 

him like a map. He looked on great national 
events for thousands of years to come as men on 
some bright day look forth from some eminence 
on the fields and rivers and homes stretching far 
away, or as a traveller gazes in succession at the 
historic paintings which a nation has gathered at 
its capitol to commemorate the triumphs of the 
past. He saw the Star of Jacob. He saw the 
Church sweeping the earth with bridal robes and 
veiling her face with stars. He saw the resur- 
rection of the dead and eternal judgment. What 
a gallery of pictures I Never saw Roman or Tus- 
can such — so speaking, so eloquent, so instruc- 
tive. Hail, Balaam, the prophet, the seer, the 
oracle wiser and more gifted than Delphos or Do- 
dona or sibyl — Balaam, mouth of gold, because 
mouth of Godi 

Favored man! How much God did for him! 
What dignities and privileges and opportunities 
came together in his lot! In the place where his 
lot fell, in the time in which he lived, in the race 
and family to which he belonged, in the abilities 
he possessed, in the reputation and influence he 
enjoyed, in the amount of his religious informa- 
tion, in his respect for organic religion and strong 
desire for salvation, in his energetic beginning of 
obedience to God, and in his great function as 
a prophet, he was a man greatly favored of for- 
tune, or, if that is a too heathen way of speaking, 
of the providence and Spirit of God. 



BALAAM. 175 

What became of Balaam ? I say, what be- 
came of Balaam ? For it is time to look towards 
the end and see what was the outcome of so much 
that was brilliantly promising. Did his ten 
talents gain other ten ? Did he become a solidly 
and comprehensively good man, and then go 
from strength to strength till he appeared in 
Zion before God? 

Now let us note the moral of this man's his- 
tory. Notwithstanding the amount done for him 
and the immense advantages he enjoyed (for we 
have seen that he lived in Eden in many senses), 
Balaam was both a wicked and a foolish man, and 
came to a sad end. It was Lucifer over again — 
wicked and foolish in heavenly places, and so 
losing them. He was a professional soothsayer 
and diviner, endeavoring to gain forbidden knowl- 
edge by consulting spirits and by other kindred 
means, and God speaks of such persons on this 
wise: "There shall not be found among you a 
consulter with familiar spirits or a wizard or a 
necromancer; for all that do these things are an 
abomination to the Lord." Of course Balaam 
was an abomination to him, as are all spiritists at 
the present day. He "loved the wages of un- 
righteousness," even while exercising the func- 
tions of a prophet and having direct communica- 
tions with Jehovah. After this time we find him 
sinning still more grossly, teaching Balak how to 
put God against the Hebrews by corrupting their 



1/6 LONG AGO. 

morals. The last we know of him he was perish- 
ing with the Midianites under the sharp sword of 
Joshua. 

He undoubtedly perished in his sins. The 
words he used, "I shall see him, but not now; I 
shall behold him, but not nigh," seem to have 
predicted his fate as a castaway. He would ap- 
pear before God in judgment, but would not be 
permitted to approach him. But the final Scrip- 
ture notice of him is still more decisive: "Who 
have forsaken the right way, following the way 
of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved the wages 
of unrighteousness. These are wells without 
water, clouds that are carried with a tempest, to 
whom the mist of darkness is reserved for ever." 

The mist of darkness for ever! That, then, 
was the gloomy fate of Balaam; a man on whom 
the providence and Spirit of God had heaped 
such great advantages; a man like a mountain of 
his own land, great, fair, sublime, its foot in 
Eden, its sides glowing with all fair climates and 
productions, its head nestled among the stars; 
and yet, O Ararat, the flood at last rises over thee 
and thou art gone! Shall I say, Oh, lame and im- 
potent conclusion of a great man? Rather let me 
say, Oh, conclusion that contradicts and blas- 
phemes and destroys all its great antecedents! 

Can we forget that we may have great things 
done for us; may see Providence signally kind to 
us and our worldly interests at almost every 



BALAAM. 177 

point ; may see even religious advantages im- 
parted to us with unstinting hand; yea, may even 
see the work of the Spirit as an enlightener, 
arouser, and reformer exceedingly prosperous 
within us up to a certain point, and yet remain 
radically and greatly irreligious, go on from bad 
to worse, and at last disappear in a " horror of 
great darkness''? The one thing that Balaam 
lacked was a spirit of comprehensive repentance. 
Had he added the honors of a martyr to those of 
a prophet, he could not have dispensed with this 
root of all true goodness. And nothing that we 
have in the form of privilege and opportunity and 
light and good feeling, nothing that we highly 
favored citizens of the great nineteenth century 
possess in the form of outward or inward advan- 
tage, will make sure our piety and salvation or 
enable us to dispense with that godly sorrow that 
worketh repentance unto salvation, and whose 
tears hold in solution the whole Christian charac- 
ter and life. 



I.ons Ago. J 2 



VII. THE GOD OF BATTLES. 



JOSHUA 

The Invincible Cham' 
pion. 



the: god oe battles— JOSHUA. 181 



VI. THE GOD OF BATTLES- 
JOSHUA. 

"The confused noise of the battle and gar- 
ments rolled in blood;" "the thunder of the cap- 
tains and the shouting" — this is what the very- 
name of Joshua suggests to us. 

The Hebrews have furnished examples of first- 
class men in almost every field of human effort. 
As bankers, as statesmen, as authors, as artists, as 
soldiers, as saints, as sinners, the sons of Israel 
have a great name. Among the ancient law- 
givers, who surpasses Moses in the justice, hu- 
manity, and wide influence of his codes? Cer- 
tainly not Draco nor Lycurgus nor Solon nor 
Numa nor Justinian. Among historians, who 
surpasses the same old Hebrew in the reliableness 
and value of his contributions to our knowledge 
of the past ? Certainly not Herodotus, nor any 
other Greek; certainly not Livy, nor any other 
Roman; certainly not Berosus or Manetho, nor 
any other Chaldsean or Egyptian; certainly not 
Gibbon, nor any other Englishman. Among 
poets, who surpasses David and Isaiah — the min- 
gled sweetness and fire of the one and the min- 
gled pathos and sublimity of the other? In my 
opinion, certainly not Homer, David's contempo- 



l82 LONG AGO. 

rary; nor Virgil, to whom Isaiah was one of the 
ancients. Among monarchs, who surpasses in as- 
tuteness and splendor Solomon the Magnificent, to 
whom it was said, " L,o, I have given thee a wise 
and understanding heart, so that there was none 
like thee before thee, neither after thee shall any 
arise like unto thee; and I have also given unto 
thee riches and honor, so that there shall not be 
any among the kings like unto thee all thy days." 
Certainly no ancient monarchs have left equal 
monuments of their wisdom, none equal evi- 
dence of their wealth and splendor, unless we 
accept as historical such Arabian Nights as tell of 
the Caliphs of Bagdad and the Great Mogul of 
Delhi. And as to warriors and champions, what 
Hector was to the Trojans, Achilles to the Greeks, 
the Cid to the Spaniards, Wallace to the Scots, 
Richard the Lion-hearted to the English, such 
was Joshua the son of Nun to the Hebrews — a 
man before whom no man was able to stand all 
his days. 

In general, war is a miserable and wicked bus- 
iness. Notwithstanding the great qualities which 
soldiers sometimes display; notwithstanding the 
great place they hold in history, romance, and 
song; notwithstanding their pomp and circum- 
stance when pennons flutter and banners wave 
and steel-clad legions flash glory in the sun till 
the fiery heart of youth throbs and sings like a 
trumpet — notwithstanding all this war in general 



THE GOD OK BATTLES — JOSHUA. 183 

is a most wretched affair. It is against both Dis- 
pensations. It is cruel as the grave. It is to be 
prayed against, and, if necessary, fought against. 
The time will come when the gates of Janus will 
not only be permanently closed, but the nations 
will wonder that they were ever open. For war 
generally accomplishes nothing valuable, while 
wasting property and happiness and life and mor- 
als beyond all account. I think that even Joshua, 
that mighty and most successful Hebrew warrior, 
would have consented to this view of war in gen- 
eral. 

But he would have been sure to add that, nev- 
ertheless, war is sometimes necessary. It was 
necessary in heaven when the rebel angels were 
to be cast out. Naturally enough they did not 
want to leave such a place, and so Michael and 
his angels had to fight them away. God made 
war on the antediluvians with a flood, on Sodom 
and Gomorrah with a rain of mingled fire and 
brimstone, on the Egyptians with ten plagues 
and the Red Sea. After that, instead of using the 
brute forces of nature as his weapons of war on 
the wicked, he thought it best to use human 
weapons, and so said to Israel, "Go fight against 
Amalek and I will help you; and when you come 
to wicked Canaan, the most wicked and inexcusa- 
ble of all lands, fight it with sword and spear as I 
fought the more ancient sinners with water and 
fire. Must I always endure such people? May I 



184 LONG AGO, 

not choose my instruments for removing them? 
I shall not cease to make war on sin and sinners; 
and sometimes I shall use earthquakes, and some- 
times famines, and sometimes pestilences, and 
sometimes I shall use the swords of men. Let 
Joshua sweep my land clean of the abominable 
and incorrigible, even as my fires swept the vale 
ofSiddim." 

With such a declaration of war as this on the 
part of the Supreme Ruler, the war against Ca- 
naan, severe as it was, was as holy as prayer; and 
Joshua, clad in armor and thundering on the 
wicked cities and armies as an avenging fate, 
was as canonical as Aaron the high priest minis- 
tering in his robes before the altar. War was his 
mission. 

Now let us see how he was brought to his mis- 
sion and how he discharged it. 

At the time of the exodus Joshua was about 
forty years old. Consequently he was born near 
the time when Moses fled into Midian, and in the 
very midst of that grinding oppression that forced 
mothers to cast out their young children to the 
end they might not live. We have no clew to 
the social standing of his parents. Perhaps they 
were among the highest in Ephraim — perhaps 
among the humblest. That God who afterward 
raised David from the sheep-cote to the palace, and 
Jesus of Nazareth from the manger to the princi- 
pality over all things, may have brought up the 



THE GOD OE BATTLES— JOSHUA. 1 85 

son of Nun to his high destiny from the very 
humblest of all the Hebrew families. But, what- 
ever the rank of his family in Israel, its condition 
as a slave-family was wretched in the extreme. 
No Pharaonic palace lodged the infant Joshua. 
None of the schools of Egyptian wisdom which 
Moses attended were for him. He did not, like 
Moses, have princes and nobles and sages for his 
early companions. All his years, until far into 
manhood, must have been spent under the eye of 
a taskmaster. He was one of those who made 
bricks and furnished their own straw. Of course 
his portion of what we would now call early ad- 
vantages was next to nothing. And yet during 
that almost half-century of slavery his character 
may have been gradually tempering in the furnace 
to those sterner and more robust qualities for 
which his later life would have so large occasion. 
Some souls manage to get more nourishment out 
of storms than out of calms. But doubtless he 
was glad to see the sky clearing up under the Mo- 
saic miracles and to obey the summons to leave 
for ever behind that most unpleasant school, the 
house of bondage. 

In what way he first drew the notice of Moses 
we do not know. Perhaps he was a very notice- 
able man physically. Perhaps in the swarming 
and turbulent camp he did some great feat of valor 
and strength in the interest of quiet and order. 
Perhaps Moses was one of those leaders who, like 



186 LONG AGO. 

Napoleon, are ever on the watch for new men of 
ability and prowess — quick to discover and quick 
to promote them. Perhaps God himself by a di- 
rect message pointed out the rising chief to the 
risen. In whatever way Joshua came to the no- 
tice of Moses, he soon became his personal attend- 
ant. In this situation he at once showed so great 
a character and capacity as to justify his being 
entrusted with the weightiest enterprises. Ere 
the exodus was two months old we find him lead- 
ing the battle against Amalek, who had fallen on 
the rear of Israel and had smitten the feeble and 
aged placed there for greater security. It was a 
sudden elevation and a great one. He vaulted 
at once from a brick-kiln to a generalship. Did 
it harm him, as sudden elevations sometimes 
harm? He quietly expanded to fill his princely 
sphere, and filled it, apparently, with as much ease 
as if he had been born a prince. He had not been 
trained at some Egyptian West Point; he had not 
spent years as aid to some Egyptian Eugene or 
Marlborough; he may have had no experience 
whatever in the art of war. But great geniuses 
are sometimes independent of the preparations 
and helps necessary to other men, and neither Ju- 
lius Caesar nor Cromwell nor Joshua may have 
needed to serve in the ranks before ruling a battle. 
Moses knew his man. As soon as Amalek made 
onset Joshua became commander-in-chief. He 
went forth to the field of strife, and Moses ascended 



TH.H GOD OK BATTLES — JOSHUA. 1 87 

the eminence of prayer. The one grasped trie 
sword of man, the other the rod of God. To show 
to Israel their dependence on God it was a change- 
ful battle that day. As long as the prophet held 
up the rod that spoke of divine power, the warrior 
was able to carry dismay and defeat into the ranks 
of the enemy. But when the uplifted hand sank 
through weariness, all the exertions of the chief- 
tain in the field were unable to check the retreat 
of his troops. It was plain that the human and 
divine must work together. Then Aaron and 
Hur stood up to save the day, the one on this side 
and the other on that, upholding the sacred hands 
on which hung the fates of battle. The people 
rallied. Joshua hurled them again on the foe in 
steady triumph; and the sun at his setting saw 
Amalek discomfited with the edge of the sword. 
Joshua was a great soldier; but his army at that 
time must have been a mere mob, and would have 
sunk at once before the wild and warlike men of 
the desert had not the Lord, strong and mighty, 
the Lord mighty in battle, appeared on the scene 
as an ally. 

Soon after this battle Joshua ascended Sinai 
with Moses. This is a fact which commonly 
makes but small impression on the reader of the 
sacred narrative, though it is one that reflects high 
honor on the soldier. The people at large were 
not allowed even to touch the mountain on which 
the glory of God was resting and from which had 



188 LONG AGO. 

gone forth the law in a divine voice. A select 
number of the elders were allowed to ascend a 
little way with Moses, and to see as it were the 
pavement, clear as the body of heaven, on which 
rested the foot of the God of Israel; but Joshua 
only was suffered to accompany the prophet to the 
very edge of the cloud which crowned the summit 
and veiled the central glory. Here they re- 
mained together for six days, watching with 
shaded eyes such displays of the supernatural as 
no others of the host ever saw. Then Moses was 
called within the cloud. For forty days Joshua 
awaited his return; for forty days he sat at the 
gate of heaven. Sinai was his mount of trans- 
figuration. Did he not, like Peter, want to stay 
there always? Perhaps so; but as the apostle had 
to come down from his mount in order to fulfil 
his mission, so the warrior had to come down 
from his mount in order to fulfil his destiny in 
the high places of the field. 

As Israel neafed the land of promise twelve 
men were sent to explore it. After more than a 
month's absence they returned and reported. 
Most of them brought a very discouraging report. 
They said the country they had spied out was so 
poor that it ate up its inhabitants; also that the 
people were of such gigantic size that themselves 
seemed grasshoppers in comparison. The camp 
was wofully disheartened. Murmurs, clamors, 
flat-footed rebellion broke out. They would 



THE GOD OF BATTLES— JOSHUA. 189 

choose a new leader and go back to Egypt. In 
this state of things the other two members of the 
delegation rent their clothes, impeached their as- 
sociates of misrepresentation, and brought in a 
minority report. "The land which we passed 
through to search it," said they, "is an exceed- 
ing good land. If the Lord delight in us, then he 
will bring us into this land and give it to us, a 
land that floweth with milk and honey." Strange 
to say, these words inflamed still more the wilful 
and perverse multitude; and had not the glory of 
the Lord suddenly appeared among them, those 
two bold dissenters would have been torn to pie- 
ces. It has been said that the side on which God 
is is always a majority. So it proved in this case. 
God stood powerfully by his two witnesses. The 
wicked ten perished immediately by a plague. 
All the murmuring congregation above the age 
of twenty years were condemned to wander about 
the desert till they should die. Joshua and Caleb 
alone should enter Canaan. It pays to belong to 
a righteous minority. 

So Israel went to and fro in the desert for forty 
years, until the murmurers had all passed away. 
When the last of them had been laid in his grave 
Moses was summoned to appoint his own succes- 
sor. Who shall he be ? Why not one of his own 
sons, of whom he had two over forty years old? 
Kad not they some claim to the succession on ac- 
count of their father's great rank and services? So 



I go LONG AGO. 

men not seldom argue. But Moses was not that 
sort of reasoner. Though he had been faithful 
in all his house; though Israel, so to speak, owed 
everything to him; though doubtless he had in full 
force the feelings natural to a father, he made no 
account whatever of such things. He knew that 
the great post which he had so well filled was not 
his to hand down as an heirloom. It was for the 
most worthy, not for the most Mosaic. And a 
wiser than he must do the selecting. And God 
selected Joshua out of all the millions of the host. 
He must be the coming man. The times would 
soon be calling for a great soldier as thev had 
been calling for a great legislator; so let the great 
legislator, instead of appointing his own son Ger- 
shom, appoint that great man whom all Israel 
had come by degrees to know as the most valiant 
and mighty of all their men-at-arms. So Moses 
in sight of all the people laid consecrating hands 
on the head of his friend. He set him before Kle- 
azar the high priest and all the congregation and 
gave him an appropriate charge. He put some 
of his own honor upon him that the people might 
become accustomed to paying him proper respect. 
At the word of Joshua they went out; at his word 
they came in. Thus he was prepared to rule; 
thus they were prepared to obey. And there 
would be no violent transition when Moses should 
be called to go up higher. 

That time soon came. The prophet went up 



THE GOD OF BATTLES — JOSHUA. 191 

to the summits of Nebo and looked abroad over 
the fairest land beneath the sun, and from thence 
went up to the summits of heaven and looked 
abroad over the fairest land above the sun. Joshua 
was at once accepted as his successor, and began 
that brilliant career of conquest in which after all 
God was a far more conspicuous figure than man. 
The first victory gained was over the laws of 
nature. The army had come up on the east side 
of Jordan. It was the time of harvest, and the 
river was overflowing all its banks. The waters 
were rushing and boiling and whirling with the 
unwonted floods. Boats there were none; bridges 
there were none, nor materials for making them. 
Even Julius Caesar, resourceful military engineer 
as he w r as on the wooded banks of the Rhine, 
would have despaired of crossing an army across 
the unwooded Jordan. Nature herself seemed to 
forbid and mock Joshua. But the God who made 
nature knew, and always has known, how to tri- 
umph over it, and, fortunately for the embarrassed 
army, he was on their side. "What ailed thee, 
O thou sea, that thou fleddest, thou Jordan that 
thou wast driven back !" The matter was that a 
greater Commander than Joshua was conquering 
the Jordan even as he had conquered the Red Sea 
for the fathers. Behold the waters heaped up on 
this side and the waters heaped up on that side; 
and, between, a great highway broad enough for 
an army right over against the city of Jericho ! 



IQ2 LONG AGO. 

It was all a divine work. Great Joshua had noth- 
ing to do with it. All Israel stood still and saw 
the salvation of God. He made the depths of the 
sea a way for his ransomed to pass over. Com- 
monly God requires men to act with him as a 
condition of being helped. On this occasion they 
had nothing to do but to wonder and be thank- 
ful. When his people can do nothing God will 
do everything. When some impassable obstacle 
seems to us to lie between us and what God has 
commanded or promised, we are to go boldly for- 
ward, and as soon as our feet touch the river we 
shall find a dry way before us. 

Right over against Jericho went the dry- 
shod host. Of course the citizens saw the won- 
derful sight. It must have been a dreadful as 
well as wonderful sight to them, for of what use 
would their walls and towers be against a Power 
that had with such supreme ease broken through 
such a barrier as the Jordan ! But, after all, this 
is rather unsafe arguing. The blindness and in- 
fatuation of men are sometimes such that they 
will do and think very unreasonable things. The 
people of Jericho may have said, " Their god is a 
god of the valleys and not of the hills, a god 
of the waters and not of the dry land." If 
so, they had six days in which to indulge this 
mistake. On the first day Joshua and his forces 
silently bore the ark about the city once. The 
walls remained as solid as ever. On the second 



THE GOD OF BATTLES — JOSHUA. 1 93 

day the same thing was done ; walls as solid as 
ever. So for six successive days ; and when they 
were ended the heathen may have said exultingly, 
" Let them tramp on ; we can stand any amount 
of that kind of warfare." But the close of the 
seventh day altered their views. On that day 
Israel compassed the city seven times; and when, 
at the last circuit, the ark-bearing priests blew 
their trumpets and the army at the command of 
Joshua rent heaven with a shout, down went 
rocky rampart and tower all round the city as if 
an earthquake had smitten them. For aught I 
know, during all those silent days the angels 
may have been prying at and loosening the foun- 
dations of things and preparing for a general 
breakdown, just as Virgil fancies Neptune ta 
have done at Troy; but if so it was all unseen, 
and when the catastrophe came it was as if the 
massive masonry had suddenly caught sight of 
God and on the instant prostrated itself before 
him in worship. Then every Hebrew soldier, 
wherever he happened to be, went up straight 
before him over the prostrate walls. Now the 
human part of the work really began. Hitherto 
only God had been working. The daily marches 
had been mere warning and symbolism, had no 
tendency whatever to prostrate walls ; now let 
Joshua and his host, in God's name, ply fire and 
sword and thoroughly clean out that sink of 
abominations, those Augean stables, that men 

Urns Ago. . I3 



1 94 LONG AGO. 

call Jericho. And they did it. They answered 
the purpose of scavengers just as well as the Jordan 
would have done had its floods been turned through 
the city. May not God choose his instruments? 

The silver and gold of the captured city, by 
express divine command, were to be consecrated 
to religious uses. This without regard to the 
character of the original owners or the manner in 
which the treasure had been acquired. It has 
sometimes been claimed that religious institutions 
should not accept the money of irreligious men ; 
but in this case God not only accepted it but de- 
manded it. It should at last begin to do some 
good in the world. Was the fact that it had done 
no good in the past a reason why this deplorable 
state of things should always continue ? It seems 
that God thought not. He demanded that all the 
silver and gold of wicked Jericho should be strict- 
ly reserved for him. They were his royalty. 
They were his perquisites, his part of the spoil 
as supreme warrior and God of battles. Joshua 
was careful to make this requisition well under- 
stood throughout the camp. But there was one 
man hardy enough to disregard it. Achan se- 
creted in his tent two hundred shekels of silver 
and fifty shekels of gold. It is quite possible that 
Israel at large was at fault in not watching with 
sufficient care to prevent such a crime. However 
this may be, we know that it is the habit of Prov- 
idence to hold the public responsible to a certain 



THK GOD OF BATTLES — JOSHUA. 195 

extent for the behavior of each member. All are 
inextricably bound up together: consequently the 
whole has to suffer somewhat for whatever is 
wrong in the character and conduct of any part; 
so that it is for the interest of everybody to look 
after the moral condition of all his neighbors, and 
good people are put upon making all those around 
them good as well as themselves. This, I sup- 
pose, explains the way in which God dealt with 
Israel in the matter of Achan. He would not 
prosper the army in its undertakings till the crim- 
inal had been looked up and punished. Joshua 
sent a small force to capture the neighboring city 
of Ai. Instead of succeeding easily, as they ex- 
pected, they were put to flight by their enemies 
and chased back with loss to the camp. That 
was a great mortification to Joshua. He felt, too, 
that it was likely to hurt much their prestige with 
the heathen. So he besought the Lord to show 
him where the trouble lay. The divine finger 
settled slowly towards Achan. What must have 
been the agony of the culprit as he saw the lot 
gradually narrowing its circle about him till at 
last it included only himself! Had he forgotten 
that there are always two spectators of every 
crime — the criminal himself and God? Achan 
confessed and received the punishment he had 
reason to expect. His crime was leze-majesty — 
the same that long afterwards condemned to death 
Ananias and Sapphira. 



196 LONG AGO. 

Sin having been put away, Joshua was now 
able to proceed in his victorious career. He 
marched all his forces on Ai. To the resources 
of numbers he added the resources of stratagem. 
A picked body of troops was sent under cover of 
night to lie in ambush near the city. The re- 
mainder was brought up openly the next morn- 
ing in battle array. The gates of Ai poured out 
her warriors confidently to the strife. Scarcely 
had the battle begun when the Hebrews wavered 
and retreated. Even Joshua himself was seen re- 
tiring from the field. Then it was that the wel- 
kin rang with the shouts of the elated heathen. 
" They are running away as before," cried each 
to his fellow. They thronged after the supposed 
cowards; and from the city poured out old and 
young to join in the hot pursuit and in the spoil 
and rejoicings of the assured victory. The city 
was completely evacuated of its defenders. Then 
Joshua turned for a moment and stretched forth 
his spear towards the city. The sun flashed the 
signal to the men in ambush. They rose and 
hurried in at the open gates. The torches, like 
shooting stars, darted from dwelling to dwelling. 
On still swept the deceptive flight, on still the 
mad pursuit. ' ' Faster, still faster, ye men of Ai ; 
let not a single invader escape!" So on they 
pressed till far from the city. Then some chanced 
to look behind, and lo, unspeakable consternation, 
their city was naming to heaven! The pursuit 



THE GOD OF BATTLES — JOSHUA. IQ7 

stopped as if smitten by lightning. At once 
Israel turned on their pursuers. Joshua himself 
came thundering back upon them. It evidently 
was a lost cause, and pursued and pursuers at once 
exchanged places. In dire panic and rout the 
heathen fled towards their burning city, while 
Joshua flamed like a comet on their rear. To 
add to the horrors of their situation they saw an- 
other army issuing from the city to meet them. 
What could they do between the two fires? The 
rout became a carnage. The sword leaped and 
ran and flashed and spared not till not one of the 
enemies of God was left. Was the doom a hard 
one? Yes, but the character of the Canaanites 
was still harder. They had gotten to be intoler- 
able. The land was aching to spew them out. 
The "poor innocent heathen" of whom some 
tell us are a myth anywhere; but those heathen 
against whom Joshua whetted his triumphant 
sword were a specially bad set. The smell of 
them rose rank to heaven. Out they must go 
from that fairest of lands in some way, even as 
Satan had to go out of heaven; and the only ques- 
tion was, How ? "It shall be by death," said the 
wisdom of God. "The death that must come to 
all soon or late shall come to them soon. Shall 
they die by famine or by pestilence or by earth- 
quake? Shall I rain fire and brimstone on this 
land of Sodomites, cr shall I send a flood to drown 
them out, or shall I use the sword of man as the 



I<p LONG AGO. 

minister of my justice? I will use the sword this 
time," said the wisdom of God, "that man may 
know that I have many ways of reaching the 
guilty, that I have more than one sort of arrow 
in my quiver, more than one sort of thong to my 
scourge. ' ' 

Not far away were the cities of the Hivites. 
Of course the news of what had befallen Jericho 
and Ai filled them with consternation. In a few 
days at the farthest they might expect those dread- 
ful invaders among them; and fear and panic and 
all the terrors ran through all streets and knocked 
at all doors and shouted with all their might, We 
are lost ! we are lost ! But after a while a thought 
came to the people as a ray of hope. They said 
among themselves, Perhaps we may gain by strat- 
agem the safety which we cannot gain by arms. 
So they sent ambassadors to Joshua with every 
appearance of having come from a far country. 
Their skin-bottles were rent and bound up; their 
garments were old, their provisions dry and 
mouldy. They had heard, they said, in their far- 
away country of the fame of Israel and of all the 
great things which had befallen them in Egypt 
and since, and they would fain be in league with 
so favored and illustrious a people. The flattery 
was pleasant and plausible. It seemed to the 
Hebrews a very credible thing that their fame, 
like a broad wave, had already travelled to the 
ends of the earth. In short, they were attacked 



THE GOD OF BATTLES — JOSHUA. 199 

ou their blind side. Even Joshua was taken in 
the snare. So he made a treaty with the men 
and confirmed it with the usual oaths. A few 
days sufficed to reveal the deception. Gibeon 
was found to be within three days' march, instead 
of at the ends of the earth. What should be 
done? A treaty had been made and solemnly 
sworn to; but then it had been made under a mis- 
apprehension; indeed, the Hebrews had been in- 
viegled into it by a positive falsehood. Judging 
from the way solemn treaties have generally been 
treated since history began, that is to say, set aside 
under the flimsiest pretexts and at the earliest 
convenience, most rulers in Joshua's place would 
not have hesitated to nullify the treaty with Gib- 
eon, oaths and all, on the instant — would have 
done it without any scruples whatever. But 
Joshua had scruples. His idea of treaties and 
oaths was not of the convenient and accommoda- 
ting sort. He would have found it a very hard 
thing to set aside some of our Indian treaties, so 
solemnly agreed to and so easily broken. He 
stood by his agreement, profit or no profit. It 
would not be amiss if some free and easy prom- 
isers and scanty performers in our time would 
take a hint from that sturdy keeper of his engage- 
ments whom men call Joshua. 

Though news did not then travel at the mighty 
pace it does now, it always has been great at 
travelling. The news, probably with large em- 



200 LONG AGO. 

bellishments, that Gibeon had joined the invaders 
hurried on a winged helmet and winged sandals 
and soon notified the kings of the Amorites that 
dwelt in the mountains and on the Shephelah. 
They rose in great wrath, gathered all their forces, 
and came to wreak vengeance on the apostate 
cities. The cities hastened to apply to Joshua 
for succor. He was glad to give it, for now the 
enemy had come to him instead of putting him 
tinder the necessity of going to them. So the 
Hebrew army marched from Gilgal to the plain 
of Gibeon. It was a forced march and by night. 
The morning light found the sacred legions face 
to face with the heathen host. The battle was 
joined. It was one of the decisive battles of the 
world, though not mentioned by Cressy. Men 
fought, and Almighty God fought also. What 
could the five heathen kings do against the King 
of kings? They fled. Along the way that goeth 
up to Beth-horon and down to Azekah and Mak- 
kedah poured the mingled tides of flight and pur- 
suit. The spear of Joshua stormed behind the 
fugitives, the hail of the Lord stormed terribly 
from above; and they that died by the hand of 
the Lord were more than they that died by the 
hand of man. During the long day the Amorites 
fled and fell, fled and fell, while Israel pursued 
and slew, pursued and slew. And now the sun 
was hasting to his setting and promised to allow 
the survivors a speedy shelter in the friendly dark- 



THE GOD OF BATTLES — JOSHUA. 201 

ness. But fearful as had been the overthrow, it 
had not been sufficiently so to satisfy the justice 
of God for long years and generations of astound- 
ing and incorrigible wickedness. More day was 
needed to complete the punishment. Then inspi- 
ration touched the lips of Joshua. In the sight of 
all Israel he turned his eye on the great orb of day 
already low in the west and cried, "Sun, stand 
thou still on Gibeon!" turned his eye on the great 
orb of night and cried, "and thou, moon, in the 
valley of Ajalon!" The great orbs obeyed. Sun 
and moon stood still and hasted not to go down 
till the judgment was complete. Did the earth 
cease to rotate ? I do not know. Were the rays 
of light so refracted as to keep the images of the 
sun and moon stationary while the bodies them- 
selves pursued invisibly their usual course? I do 
not know. Was an imitation-sun set in the sky 
just as an imitation-star was set there to guide the 
wise men of the East to Bethlehem ? I do not 
know. I only know that God was equal to either 
of these miracles, that he actually wrought that 
which, all things considered, was the simplest 
means to prolong the day, and that, when at last 
the night came, few had escaped of all that great 
host whose pennons and banners floated so bravely 
in the morning sun. 

Joshua at once followed the few survivors to 
their several cities and took them in swift succes- 
sion. He was a swift general. His army was 



202 LONG AGO. 

not a debating club, but was handled with the 
sovereign promptitude and energy of a single 
mighty will. That will was a thunderbolt. It 
lost no opportunity because of "not quite ready." 
The Hebrew captain knew all about forced 
marches. The night saw him in one place, the 
morning saw him in another. He never lingered 
on transportation and commissary departments. 
He was always doing the unexpected. In this 
respect he was the Napoleon and Caesar of the 
Hebrews. 

The news of these great and rapid successes 
thoroughly terrified and roused the whole coun- 
try. A much larger confederacy of tribes and 
kings was formed against the invaders. "And 
Jabin king of Hazor sent to Jobab king of Madon 
and to the king of Shimron and to the king of 
Achshaph, and to the kings that were on the 
north in the hill country and in the Arabah south 
of Chinneroth and in the lowland and in the 
heights of Dor on the west, and to the Canaanite 
on the east and on the west, and to the Amorite 
and the Hittite and the Perizzite and the Jebusite 
in the hill country and the Hivite under Hermon 
in the land of Mizpah; and they went out, they 
and all their hosts with them, much people, even 
as the sand that is upon the seashore in multitude, 
with horses and chariots very many." This great 
host came and pitched at the waters of Merom. 
Joshua was glad to learn the fact — glad that the 



THE GOD OF BATTLES — JOSHUA. 203 

enemy had saved him the trouble of hunting them 
up in detail, had gathered into one spot the brunt 
of their military strength, had resolved to venture 
everything on the fortune of a single battle. They 
did not have to wait long for him. With the 
masterly suddenness that characterized him he 
threw his whole force upon them. Nothing could 
withstand the impetuous onset of veterans so led, 
accustomed to victory and assured that an unseen 
Heaven was fighting for them. The heathen were 
scattered like snow before the blast. Their wick- 
edness was their weakness. Joshua was great, but 
God was greater. Indeed, it was not so much 
man that fought that day as God Almighty. As 
the stars in their courses fought against Sisera, 
so now they fought against Jabin and his allies. 
The Hebrew hero thundered through the field, 
but it was the God of battles who clothed his neck 
with thunder. At the light of thine arrow he 
went, and at the shining of thy glittering spear. 
Was it strange that the heathen confederacy was 
scattered like chaff before that other confederacy 
between the human and divine? "And the Lord 
delivered them into the hand of Israel, who smote 
them and chased them unto great Zidon, and left 
none of them remaining." 

This battle fairly broke the backbone of 
heathen Canaan ; but various smaller conflicts 
remained. And Joshua went on from city to 
city, from battle to battle, from victory to victory, 



204' LONG AGO. 

till he was thoroughly master of as much of the 
country as Israel was then able to use. Through 
the whole the Lord was to him sword and buck- 
ler, was to him wisdom and might, was to him 
glory and success. Right royally was the prom- 
ise fulfilled to him, the promise which the Lord 
made to him on that day which called him to his 
high place: " There shall not any man be able to 
stand before thee all the days of thy life. As I 
was with Moses so will I be with thee: I will not 
fail thee nor forsake thee. The Lord thy God is 
with thee whithersoever thou goest." Joshua 
never suffered a defeat. Never for a moment was 
his banner trailed in the dust. If ever a plume 
was shorn from his crest, we do not hear of it. 
He was a Hercules without a Nessus, an Achilles 
without a Paris, an Alexander without a Babylon, 
a Napoleon without Moscows and Waterloos. He 
was the battle-axe of God — keen, large, weighty, 
but always triumphant because it had back of it 
an almighty arm. So at last Canaan was a con- 
quered land. The sty that had reeked up to 
heaven so long was at last partially cleaned out 
and fumigated. Then the soldier turned states- 
man. He proceeded to divide the entire land 
among the tribes. After the settlement he con- 
tinued for nine years to hold the office of supreme 
judge — that is to say, till it was said to him, Come 
up higher. 

When at the age of one hundred and ten years 



THE GOD OE BATTLES — JOSHUA. 205 

(ah, how long that seems to our children, and 
how short it would have seemed to the antedi- 
luvians, and seems even now to most old people!) 
he saw his end to be near, Joshua called all Israel 
to him in Shechem. In that great mass-meeting 
he recounted the Lord's dealings, solemnly ac- 
cepted Him as the God of himself and his house, 
and asked the multitudes whether or not they 
would do the same. They consented to join him 
in a solemn league and covenant. He insisted 
that they should do it intelligently, carefully, and 
with all their hearts. They agreed. He then 
proceeded to put them under those heavy bonds 
to good behavior which belong to a formal public 
pledge to serve the Lord. Some people object to 
such things. They do not like to make religious 
promises: as for other sorts, they have no scruples. 
Joshua was far from being of their mind. Both 
he and his people believed in making public 
covenants with God of the most stringent sort. 
And in this great consecration meeting they only 
practised that sort of covenanting that has been 
in vogue among good men from the beginning 
and without which men cannot enter the Chris- 
tian church. 

This was the last public act of the great sol- 
dier. It was a good act to close his public life 
with: for it was his final testimony, after a long 
life of large experience and observation, not mere- 
ly that religion is important, but that it is impor- 



20b LONG AGO. 

tant for men to confess it, to be very pronounced in 
confessing it, even to bind themselves to it by a 
solemn public engagement. This testimony was 
all the more weighty because it was seconded by 
his whole foregoing life, because it was the last 
and revised edition of a testimony he had made 
long years before. As far back as we know of 
him he was openly engaged in serving God. All 
his battlefields were a divine service under a 
divine commission. This the people well knew; 
and as they clustered about the venerable war- 
saint at Shechem they felt that his last will and 
testament, made long ago, but now brought down 
to date by codicil, bequeathing them the bonds of 
a covenant never to be broken or forgotten, had 
just been re-signed, re-sealed, and delivered to 
them. They went thoughtfully to their homes; 
he went calmly to his — to fight his last battle and 
to win it. We believe that he was as victorious 
in the death-battle as he had been in all others. 
Like Paul he had fought a good fight, though on 
a different field. He had faithfully done the work 
set him, and now let him ascend to a better Ca- 
naan than that he leaves behind and one which 
he will not need to conquer. 



VIII. GIVE US A KING. 



SAMURL 
'Tiie King-Maker. 



GIVE US A KING — SAMUEL. 209 



VIII. GIVE US A KING—SAMUEL. 

The ark of God was in Shiloh. Before it 
ministered Eli, the high priest, now an old man 
and fast sinking into the infirmities of advanced 
life. But there was one infirmity about him that 
did not come from his many years; it had weighted 
him ever since he became the head of a fam- 
ily: he had no family government. He let his 
children do as they pleased. During the thirty 
or more years of his administration of Hebrew 
affairs as supreme judge and pontiff he seems to 
have discharged his public duties to the public 
satisfaction; but when it came to the duties he 
owed to his own children there was a sad break- 
down. He was all ease and indulgence. He did 
not watch over and restrain those stiff-necked 
boys of his. The consequence was that they grew 
up to be wicked young men. They made them- 
selves vile. They made the sanctuary odious. 
They disgraced the priesthood. By their cupidity 
and profligacy they drove Israel away from the 
seat of justice and from the altar of religion. 
For this misconduct of his sons God held Eli re- 
sponsible. What right had Edwards to be so busy 
in writing his ''Freedom of the Will" that he 
could not look after his son Pierpont? What 

J.on~ A£0. j * 



2IO LONG AGO. 

right had Eli to be so busy in doing justice to the 
families of other people that he could not do jus- 
tice to his own ? He should have looked first to 
the duties nearest to him. If, after that, he had 
no time and strength left for the public, he should 
have resigned his post to somebody who had both. 
No doubt there were such people — as there are 
people now who somehow manage to be both 
good public men and good fathers. But I suspect 
that the trouble with Eli was not so much want 
of time as want of manly firmness and resolution. 
It was not that he did not spend time enough on 
Hophni and Phineas, but that he did not spend 
enough in applying the rod. " Chasten thy son 
while there is hope and let not thy soul spare for 
his crying;" — what a pity that the otherwise good 
man was not good at practising this proverb ! It 
would have saved him and the public a world of 
trouble, as he was now about to discover. 

In Mt. Ephraim a child was born in answer to 
prayer. His pious mother counted him not her 
own, but, while he was yet hardly more than an 
infant, carried him up to Shiloh that he might 
begin that life-long service of religion to which 
she had solemnly dedicated him before his birth — 
a dedication in which she has been imitated by 
many a mother since. The boy made his home 
with Eli. He received his first lessons in living 
in the midst of sacred objects and under the shad- 
ow of the tabernacle. In a short time, girded 



GIVE US A KING — SAMUEL, 211 

with a linen ephod, lie was seen moving with 
reverent feet about the sanctuary, performing 
such duties relating to it as were suited to his age 
and strength. A sweet and proper child he was; 
and the people who came up to the great feasts 
from all parts of the land learned to love him as 
they saw him passing around on his little minis- 
tries. What attracts the love of men is some- 
times viewed with no favor by God. He some- 
times dislikes exceedingly the popular idol. But 
in this case the voice of the people was the voice 
of God. The eye that looks deeper than the out- 
ward deportment saw in the heart of Samuel the 
glorious jewel of a sincere piety ; and the boy soon 
had evidence, and the public also, that the heav- 
ens were giving him a favor better than any earth 
could grant, better even than the yearning love of 
that mother who came up year by year to take 
him in her arms and bless him. 

It was night. The child lay sleeping. He 
was awakened by a voice calling his name. Sup- 
posing it to be the voice of EH, Samuel hastily 
rose and went to the priest to see what he wanted. 
He wanted nothing; he had not called. The boy 
returned to his cot to hear the call twice repeated, 
and to go again twice to Eli and learn from him 
that it was no call of his. Then the priest under- 
stood: God was seeking to open communication 
with his young servant, and should the voice 
come again, he was to say, "Speak, Lord, for thy 



212 LONG AGO. 

servant heareth." Samuel followed trie direc- 
tions; and God spoke to him of the sins of Hophni 
and Phineas, of the sinful weakness of their fa- 
ther who had spared the rod and spoiled the chil- 
dren, of the utter uselessness at that late hour of 
any sacrifice or oblation to avert the disaster de- 
creed against the whole guilty family. With the 
morning light the child had the unpleasant duty 
of telling to the anxious Eli what he had heard. 
One hardly knows whom to pity most — the boy 
who told the sorrowful news or the old man who 
received it. On the whole let us pity most the 
old man who had so much on his conscience and 
whose sun was to go down in such a cloud. 

This was the beginning of frequent divine 
communications to Samuel. By degrees the peo- 
ple learned to seek the word of God at his.mouth. 
None of his words were allowed to fall to the 
ground. The counsels he gave proved to be wise. 
What he said would come to pass came to pass. 
And at last, as he neared maturity, all Israel, from 
Beersheba to Dan, came to know that God had 
again visited his people and had raised up for 
them a prophet of the first class in the person of 
the young ward of the tabernacle. What a joy it 
must have been to the motherly heart of Hannah 
to watch the gradual unfolding of such an illustri- 
ous character and mission in the child • of her 
prayers ! You, mothers, can understand how she 
must have felt. 



GIVE US A KING — SAMUEL. 213 

When Joshua established Israel in Canaan he 
did not completely root out the idolatrous natives. 
Some were left to serve as scourges in case Israel 
should forsake the Lord. And that case often oc- 
curred. Then the guilty tribes smarted and bled 
under those sounding thongs of steel whose names 
were Amorites and Perizzites and Hivites and 
Jebusites. At the time of which I am speaking, 
Israel was ripe for another bitter stroke of disci- 
pline. The nation had become so greatly cor- 
rupted that the wicked sons of EH were hardly 
more than the exponents of a depravity which 
festered through all the land, from Hermon to the 
gates of Egypt, and through all classes of society, 
from the stoled priest at the altar to the bondman 
at his plough. And still the evil grew. When 
Samuel came to maturity he was unable, with 
all his influence, to beat back the national degen- 
eracy. The Nemesis of war and defeat and op- 
pression had to be let loose. God had to appear 
in his own behalf, and add to the counsels and 
remonstrances of Samuel the eloquence of his own 
smiting rod. In short, he did to Israel what Eli 
failed to do to his sons. Eli counselled his sons 
to do well, and there stopped: God counselled his 
people to do well, and when counsels failed he 
went on to blows. The lords of the Philistines 
came up to ravage the land, to rout its armies, to 
put the sons of Eli to the sword, to capture the 
very ark of God, and, with all these disasters, to 



214 LONG AGO. 

break the heart and neck of EH. It was a costly 
thing to him to give good advice to his boys in- 
stead of a good whipping. 

Defeat brought grievous vassalage. How long 
this continued we are not told. We are only told 
that the night continued till the people sorrowed 
bitterly for the day. When their hearts had been 
softened by adversity, when they began to lament 
after the God of their fathers who had made their 
prosperity to shake like Lebanon, God sent a man 
to counsel and encourage them. That man was 
Samuel. From Ramah, his native place, where 
he seems to have gone after the capture of the 
ark, he sent a message to all the tribes that if 
they would heartily turn to the Lord they should 
be delivered from their oppressors. The whole 
land responded. Baalim and Ashtaroth were put 
away. The yoke of the true God was again 
taken on their tamed necks. Then, gathering 
themselves at Mizpah in one great congregation 
of confessing and lamenting sinners, they prayed 
to God by the mouth of Samuel for the promised 
mercy. They appointed him supreme judge. He 
sat and judged the people; he stood and prayed 
that God would turn their captivity. The cry of 
man always reaches heaven; the cry of holy men 
sometimes brings heaven down. It did in this 
case. Lo, the tramp of an army on the wind ! 
The Philistines have heard of the great congress 
at Mizpali and are marching to disperse it. 



'GIVE US A KING — SAMUEL. 21 5 

( ' Cease not to cry to the Lord for us, ' ' said the 
soldiers to the prophet as they went forth to bat- 
tle. Samuel was no Joshua; but he knew how to 
pray a hundred thousand strong. He prayed and 
God thundered. What battalions can stand when 
the God of armies takes the field ! Not the bat- 
talions of Philistia. They were swept like chaff 
before the blast. That day emancipated Israel, 
broke all the links of their late chains, and gave 
them the spoils of restored cities from Ekron to 
Gath. 

This victory was followed by many years of 
prosperity. Under the administration of the 
prophet-judge the people adhered to the Lord and 
the Lord adhered to his people. Except the Lord 
build the house they labor in vain that build it; 
except the Lord keep the city the watchman wa- 
keth but in vain. On the other hand when the 
Lord undertakes for any public interests, oh, how 
they prosper ! Even to his old age no enemy 
dared to rise up against the government of Sam- 
uel. The Amorite on the east, the Sidonians on 
the west, and the Philistine remnants in the midst 
of the land all rested quietly under the strong 
pressure of that divine hand that had undertaken 
to build the house and keep the city. 

The reproach of Eli's administration had been 
the misconduct of his children. Strange as it 
seems, when we consider the character of Samuel 
and his perfect knowledge of all the circumstances 



2l6 LONG AGO. 

attending the fall of that house to whose honors 
he had succeeded, the reproach of Shiloh was re- 
newed at Ramah. The sons of Samuel were not 
like their father. There is no evidence that they 
were of the Hophni and Phineas stamp; but they 
were wanting in that high-mindedness and offi- 
cial incorruptibleness which Samuel himself dis- 
played. They were the Francis Bacons of the 
old dispensation. For when their father felt the 
infirmities of age coming on him he associated 
his sons with him in the government, and they 
allowed themselves to take bribes and pervert jus- 
tice. To what extent their misconduct involved 
fault in their father we have no means of know- 
ing. Perhaps this case is one of the very few in 
which families have departed from the righteous 
way to which they have been faithfully trained. 
Certain it is that the Scripture gives no hint of 
blame being attached to Samuel in the matter — 
the Scripture that has so much to say of the sin 
of Eli. The consequences, however, were seri- 
ous. The people became uneasy. They fretted 
and complained, as they had a right to do. But 
when they proceeded to take advantage of the 
circumstances to demand a radical change in the 
form of government, they did what it was very 
wrong to do. They had been dazzled by the dis- 
play and pomp of the kingly rule in some of the 
nations around; and so they came to Samuel and 
demanded a king, overlooking the fact that Jeho- 



GIVE US A KING — SAMUEL. ZIJ 

vali was already their king, and that his rule by 
inspired men gave them a national lustre such. 
as could be given by no visible throne, however 
magnificent. What was of more consequence, God 
was displeased also. It was a virtual rejection of 
himself. It was both a blunder and a crime. 
Nevertheless God directed his servant to accede 
to the popular wish, under protest. So Samuel 
laid plainly before the people the evils to which 
they would be liable under a king, explained to 
them how dearly they would purchase the shi- 
ning trappings of royalty, assured them that the 
day would come when they would deeply regret 
the step they proposed to take. The remonstrance 
was in vain. None so blind as they who will not 
see. The infatuated people clamored on. They 
wanted to be like other people — a sort of want 
that has saved a few and destroyed a good many. 
What will it do in this case ? At all events, let 
Samuel proceed and make a king. The people 
will have it so — the people whose voice is not 
always the voice of God. 

A short time after this two men mi^ht have 
been seen moving towards Ramah. One was a 
young man of giant frame and noble bearing; the 
other was his servant. As they approached the 
city they inquired of some maids whom they met 
where Samuel could be found. Following direc- 
tions they soon met the prophet as he was leaving 
his house to preside at a religious festival. " Be- 



2lS LONG AGO. 

hold the future king of Israel !" said the voice of 
the Lord in his heart. He received the travellers 
graciously, told them the object of their visit be- 
fore they had opportunity to announce it, relieved 
their anxiety, and then took them with him to 
occupy the chief places at the public ceremonial. 
On the morrow he put on them the great honor 
of attending them in person for some distance as 
they left the city. When they had reached a 
place free from observation he poured on the head 
of the young man the oil of a royal anointing and 
saluted him king of Israel. We can imagine what 
the astonishment of the travellers must have been 
at all this — they of the little tribe of Benjamin, 
they of one of the least important families of that 
small tribe, and away from home for the purpose 
of finding some strayed asses ! It must have 
seemed almost incredibly romantic. Were they 
not dreaming ? Could they be in their right 
minds ? To confirm their faith the prophet pro- 
ceeded to acquaint them with some things that 
should befall them on their way home. All hap- 
pened as had been foretold. Saul, the son of 
Kish, of the tribe of Benjamin, was already by 
divine right a king. Kings of that sort are rare. 
A king appointed but not yet revealed to his 
subjects. The revelation was now to be made. 
So the nation was summoned to meet Samuel at 
Mizpah. They came up in their multitudes to be 
led by an independent and miraculous process to 



GIVE ITS A KING — SAMUEL. 2IO, 

that man whom God had chosen captain of his 
inheritance. The lots were cast; the tribe of Ben- 
jamin was taken. The lots were cast again; the 
family of Matri was taken. The lots were cast 
the third time; Saul was taken. The young man 
was drawn forth from the concealment to which 
his modesty had driven him, and stood forth be- 
fore the nation as God's appointee to their newly- 
erected throne. We would not in these days think 
of choosing a king or any other magistrate by lot; 
but it would be a perfectly safe thing to do if 
God should appoint that means of election and 
agree to superintend it, as he did in the case of 
Saul, and it would have the advantage of consid- 
erably greater quiet and order than attend our 
modern elections. Israel was satisfied with the 
lot-mode and with its result. As they looked on 
the regal person and manly beauty of Saul and 
saw that his peer was not to be found in all their 
tribes, they joyfully accepted him. "God save 
the king!" rent the air with its thunder. It re- 
mained for Samuel, as God's inspired representa- 
tive on the occasion, to tell the people the manner 
of the kingdom, that is, the fundamental laws 
according to which the monarchy must be con- 
ducted. It was to be a constitutional monarchy; 
and the constitution must be pervaded by the idea 
of God and his laws, as the rock is sometimes per- 
vaded by grains of gold; you cannot remove them 
without entirely breaking up the rock itself. This 



220 LONG AGO. 

was the sort of constitution that Samuel gave the 
new kingdom. He wrote it out fairly and laid it 
up before the Lord — the Hebrew Magna Charta of 
the rights of the subject, of the prerogative of the 
king, and of the still higher prerogative of the 
King of kings. 

Samuel does not seem to have at this time 
fully invested Saul with the kingly authority. 
This was reserved till the young man had estab- 
lished himself in the confidence of the nation by 
some deed of signal ability and public service. If 
all kings had to wait for their crowns in the same 
way some would never get them. But Saul was. 
more fortunate. He rescued Jabesh-Gilead from 
the Ammonites by means of a brilliant victory. 
The prophet seized the occasion to complete what 
he had be^un. Once more the nation assembled 
at his call. Gilgal saw him delegate his entire 
authority to Saul. Gilgal saw him seat the mon- 
arch-elect fully on his throne and confirm him in 
it with the whole weight of his own personal and 
official influence. And Gilgal too saw a still more 
imposing sight when the hoary saint gave the lis- 
tening crowds his last words of counsel, warning, 
and appeal — an appeal pathetic and sublime with 
such a consciousness of official rectitude as very 
few office-holders of lonQ- standing can venture to 
profess. "Behold, here I am! I have walked 
before you from my childhood to this day. Wit- 
ness aeainst me before the Lord and before his 



GIVE US A KING — SAMUEL. 221 

anointed: whose ox" have I taken or whose ass 
have I taken or whom have I defrauded ? whom 
have I oppressed or of whose hand have I received 
any bribe to blind my eyes therewith? and I will 
restore it you. ' ' And the people said, ' ' Thou hast 
not defrauded us nor oppressed us, neither hast 
thou taken aught of any man's hand." And he 
said to them, "The Lord is witness against you, 
and his anointed is witness this day, that ye have 
not found aught in my hand." And they an- 
swered, "He is witness." Samuel then resumed 
the port and language of a confessed prophet, 
drew from their checkered history its true moral, 
reproved them sharply for their sin in demanding 
a visible kino; instead of beinsf content with the 
Great Invisible, and warned them of the conse- 
quences should they and their king depart from 
the service of the Lord. Jehovah did not propose 
to abdicate in favor of Saul. Saul might be his 
first officer and wear a crown and live in a palace 
and lead the army, but he and his people must 
remember that there was a higher throne whose 
rights must never be invaded or neglected. To 
give emphasis to these words Samuel invoked a 
miracle from the " King: who is all kin^s above." 
At once peals of thunder shook the sky and the 
unprecedented rain of wheat-harvest descended. 
Then the people feared the Lord and Samuel. 

We are told that Samuel judged Israel all the 
days of his life. After the formal resignation of 



222 LONG AGO. 

his civil office he still exercised an almost unlim- 
ited influence in public affairs. The weight of 
his years and character, and, above all, his well- 
known relations to Jehovah as His prophet, were 
sufficient to dominate every other power in the 
state, not excepting the king himself. Was war 
to be undertaken? Samuel must consecrate it 
before the warriors would fight. Did Samuel di- 
rect a war against Amalek ? At once king and 
nation must take the field. Both king and nation 
trembled at his rebuke — a rebuke that was always 
ready whenever occasion demanded. And occa- 
sions were not slow in coming. 

The beginning of the new kingdom was very 
promising. Saul had a divine appointment to his 
great place. He was welcomed to it by a unani- 
mous people and supported in it with the whole 
weight of Samuel's vast personal and official in- 
fluence. He had some very shining qualifications 
for his shining position — a young and vigorous 
manhood, a majestic person, abounding courage 
and strength, a prestige among friends and ene- 
mies gained by actual exploits in war. In addition 
he had at his right hand a most sagacious and up- 
right counsellor in the person of Samuel. This 
was an immense capital to start with. He had 
only to go forward, straight forward, on the plain 
path to which he had been introduced in order to 
become a blessing and a glory. What possessed 
him to throw away all these advantages, as he 



GIVE US A KING — SAMUEL. 22$ 

did? He soon began to take liberties with posi- 
tive divine orders, and offered petty excuses and 
pretexts for taking his own way after God had 
told him to take another — -just as some people do 
now, who, being bidden to believe in Christ, 
make public confession of him, be baptized in his 
name, and "do this in remembrance" of him, 
take the liberty to improve on these directions 
and trust that all will be well. Cannot they be 
as good without joining a church as with ? What 
good will being baptized do? And as to the 
Lord's Supper, it does not seem to them that 
much stress should be laid on such an outward 
observance as that. In short they are like Saul. 
They do not obey orders. They set up to be 
wiser than their Maker and presume to diverge 
from the Lord's path in favor of one of their own. 
They will surely come to trouble, as Saul did. 
He grew more venturesome and self-willed, and 
thought to make up in one direction for his fail- 
ure in another. He would offer a great many 
first-class sacrifices, and then take his own way 
with Amalek. Foolish king ! As if obedience 
were not better than sacrifice, and to obey than 
the fat of rams ! So God left him. His family 
was excluded from the throne. Samuel was sent 
to Bethlehem to anoint another in his room, and, 
shortly after, was sent to his grave: a great gain 
to him, but a great public affliction. All Israel 
came together to lament and bury him, so great 



224 LONG AGO. 

and universal was the honor in which he was 
held. And then wars and troubles of various 
kinds thickened fast about the unhappy monarch. 
Poor, unfortunate, guilty Saul — why did he not 
think on his ways and turn his feet? Why did 
he not repent and call for pardon on the All-Mer- 
ciful? Who can say that it was too late? But 
he floundered on in his blind, infatuated course; 
and, as a man in a slough often sinks deeper the 
more he struggles, so it was with Saul. He strug- 
gled and he fought; he had his little successes 
and gleams of better things; but still his perplexi- 
ties and troubles grew apace until sometimes his 
mind lost its balance and he was little better than 
a madman. Samuel was gone. God was farther 
away than Samuel. When the harassed mon- 
arch prayed, no answer came by prophet or 
dream or vision or Urim and Thummim. He 
had worn out the divine patience. And now the 
Philistines were upon him in overwhelming num- 
bers. Whither should he turn? no Samuel to 
go to, no God. He would go to a necromancer, 
and see if he could not be put into communication 
with his old friend and adviser. 

But necromancers and sorcerers of all sorts 
were strictly forbidden by the divine law — as they 
are to this day — and resorting to their arts for 
help of any kind was a capital offence then, as it is 
now. Of this Saul was well aware. He had 
himself vigorously enforced the law, very likely 



GIVE US A KING — SAMUEL. 225 

with the idea that he might make up for his short- 
comings in certain directions by extra strictness in 
others. But now his difficulties tempted him in- 
to the pit which he had been trying to seal up, 
and he yielded to the temptation. He resorted to 
sin to help him out of the troubles into which sin 
had plunged him. That strange homoeopathy has 
been practised from the beginning even until 
now, and always with one result — greater trou- 
bles than ever. Nothing: but ceasing to do evil 
offers any hope. By this attempt to deal with 
forbidden arts v Saul extinguished his last ray. 
The night became total. 

It was the night before the battle of Gilboa. 
The armies were facing: each other — doing: last 
things preparatory to the dreadful struggle on 
the morrow. Saul, disheartened, dismayed, un- 
strung in body and mind by the miserable con- 
sciousness of having been forsaken of God, stole 
away from the camp under cover of darkness and 
disguise to the dwelling of the sorceress of Endor. 
He asked to be put in communication with the 
spirit of Samuel. The woman went through cer- 
tain formalities (perhaps waved a wand, drew cir- 
cles, mingled various herbs in a boiling caldron 
while muttering incantations; for aught I know 
tipped a table and went into a trance), and lo, to 
her surprise Samuel came ! She had reason to 
be surprised — whether a mere pretender or ac^ 
tually in league with the powers of darkness. If 

Laos Ago. I ^ 



226 



LONG AGO. 



actually in such league, it was not for a moment 
to be supposed that a saint in glory would be sub- 
ject to her call. So she was filled with amaze- 
ment and consternation when the prophet pre- 
sented himself. But the consternation of Saul 
was still greater when the phantom, in the well- 
known voice, proceeded to rebuke him for this 
last daring breach of the divine law, refused to 
counsel him, and assured him of defeat and death 
on the morrow. "Then Saul fell straightway 
all along on the earth, and was sore afraid be- 
cause of the words of Samuel, and there was no 
strength in him." 

" The sun of the morrow looked forth from his throne 
And beamed on the face of the dead and the dying; 
For the yell of the strife, like the thunder, had flown, 
And red on Gilboa the carnage was lying. 

" And there lay the son of the widowed and sad, 
Who yesterday went from her dwelling for ever; 
Now the wolf of the hills a sweet carnival had 

On the delicate limbs that had ceased not to quiver. 

" And there came the daughter, the delicate child, 

To hold up the head that was breathless and hoary ; 
And there came the maiden, all frantic and wild, 
To kiss the loved lips that were gasping and gory; 

" And there came the consort that struggled in vain 
To stem the red tide of a spouse that bereft her; 
And there came the mother that sunk 'mid the slain 
To weep o'er the last human stay that was left her. 

"O bloody Gilboa, a curse ever lie 

Where the king and his people were slaughtered together; 
May the dew and the rain leave thy herbage to die, 
Thy flocks to decay, and thy forests to wither!" 



give; us a king— samuel. 227 

The story is pathetic and instructive. Pa- 
thetic; for it tells of advantages sadly misused and 
at last forfeited; of a day that began most fairly, 
then clouded and clouded, blackened and black- 
ened, till it ended in a horror of thick darkness. 
Instructive ; for we see that parents have encour- 
agement to dedicate their children early to God; 
that early piety is both possible and fruitful ; that 
God requires parents to enforce good behavior on 
children if necessary; that great opportunities 
mean great responsibilities; that Providence is not 
hampered by natural laws, but moves among and 
uses them with perfect freedom; that fidelity to 
God requires a reproving and warning ministry 
as well as a teaching one; that it is unsafe to trifle 
with the commands of the Most High; that 110 
amount of lip-honor and ritual will answer instead 
of obedience; that no excuses and pretexts such as 
men are apt to give for modifying divine instruc- 
tions will pass current in the courts of heaven ; 
that sinners must not be surprised if in this world 
they begin to reap as they have sown and to find 
that the way of transgressors is hard; that it is 
not true, as some would have us think, that the 
Old Testament contains no hint of a future state 
for man. The fact is, a future state underlies the 
theology of all nations. Saul only did as the an- 
cients of all creeds did in assuming that Samuel 
though dead was still living. And so he was. 
Though his body lay mouldering in Ramah, the 



228 LONG AGO. 

seer was still seeing, the old-time messenger of 
God could still carry his messages, and actually 
came back to discharge again with Saul his func- 
tion as preacher and prophet — not at the call of 
necromancers, but at the bidding of God; not to 
humor the curiosity of idlers nor furnish oppor- 
tunities to science, but, it may be, to underscore 
that great word hereafter which God has written 
with his own finger in all languages, on all tem- 
ple walls, over all the world. 



IX. A NEW DYNASTY. 



DAVID 
The Royal Psalmist, 



DAVID. 231 



IX. DA VID. 



After Moses, Joshua the great captain. 
After Joshua, judges for about four hundred years 
until the greatest of them all, Samuel the proph- 
et. Then followed King Saul, whose day opened 
so fairly, clouded up so speedily, and sank in such 
storms. 

Among these storms began another signal his- 
tory. The place is the neighborhood of Bethle- 
hem; the person is a lad tending the flocks of his 
father. He keeps them from straying, he guides 
them to proper pastures and waters, he watches 
against preying beasts and men. During mid-day 
heat he brings the sheep to grateful shades; and 
while they are lying at their ease under protect- 
ing trees and cliffs, he too reclines under some 
wide-spreading beech-tree and sends forth sweet 
sounds from his shepherd-pipe. In such quiet 
occupations the day wears contentedly away, 
without, it may be, a single thought on his part 
that he is not destined to spend all his days in the 
same humble pursuits and in the same humble 
neighborhood. 

And yet he is not a common lad to look at. 
You would scarcely find anywhere in the laud 
finer form or features. And if you could only 



2$2 LONG AGO. 

look beneath the engaging exterior you would 
find a still fairer soul — the dawning intellect of 
the statesman, the fancy of the bard, the courage 
of the hero, and the piety of the saint. 

"David!" The lad starts to his feet. He 
sees some one beckoning in the distance. He 
hurries homeward. As he enters the village he 
sees a group standing about an altar; and as he 
comes near he recognizes the chief men of the 
place, all the male members of his father's family, 
and in the midst of them a person of most vener- 
able aspect who plainly is no less a person than 
Samuel the prophet. All eyes are bent on him- 
self. What can be the meaning of this? What 
can these bearded and hoary men have to do with 
such a stripling ? He does not have to wait long 
for an answer. "This is he," said the voice of 
God in the heart of the prophet. So Samuel 
took the boy by the hand, led him into the centre 
of the group, and silently poured oil on his head. 
No golden circlet was put around his brow, no 
shout of "God save the king!" rent the air, no 
oaths of loyalty were administered; but from that 
time David was a consecrated king — taken from 
the sheep by God to feed Jacob, his people, and 
Israel, his inheritance. 

This event made no immediate change in the 
life of David. He still remained at home. He 
still busied himself with shepherd duties after the 
old manner. Saul remained on the throne; and 



DAVID. 233 

all the persons present at the anointing of a new- 
king were interested to conceal the fact from so 
jealous and passionate a monarch. So David 
went back to his old life. But it must have been 
with a new mind and with a new relation to the 
household of his father. Henceforth his parents 
and brothers must have looked on him with un- 
wonted eyes. Henceforth his thoughts were 
above his condition; and, lo, his horizon had 
suddenly shot out beyond the pastures of little 
Bethlehem and taken in cities and tribes and na- 
tions ! Great thoughts and plans that before had 
never even ventured into his dreams now became 
constant guests. In this, of course, was an ele- 
ment of danger to a young and inexperienced 
heart — danger of pride, of self-indulgence, of dis- 
taste of humble duties. Children are easily 
spoiled by great expectations. But this lad seems 
to have met the danger manfully. The prospect 
of a great rise in the world did not turn his head. 
He did not straightway become a balloon and sail 
away to destruction. He remained the same ami- 
able, engaging, simple-minded, and simple-man- 
nered lad that Samuel found him. A rare ex- 
ample among young people (or old either, for that 
matter); for just as soon as our cheeks begin to 
feel the coming breeze of prosperity, nine out of 
ten of us will hoist all sail and go ploughing and 
dashing through the seas as if the region of break- 
ers were already passed. But David, I imagine, 



234 LONG AGO. 

went on tending the flocks on the hillsides of 
Bethlehem; went on with the old routine of 
homely duties in the family as well as in the field; 
went on with the same modest carriage as before 
among the mates and citizens over whom he was 
one day to bear sway. So much the grace of 
piety and sound sense did for him. But it did 
not prevent the thought of the coming greatness 
from silently fermenting in him and gradually 
working out a certain preparation from the scenes 
before him. The mind instinctively seeks to 
adapt itself to what it sees coming. As soon as 
the young eagle can look over the edge of its nest 
and see a plenty of room it will begin to stir its 
wings. David began to stir his. As years passed 
and the boy ripened into the youth, the invisible 
school of his own thoughts gradually trained him 
towards the great sphere he was destined to reach. 
God had fully purposed to rend the kingdom 
from Saul. But a divine purpose sometimes 
moves very slowly towards execution. There is 
a best time for everything, and the best time for 
the dethronement of Saul was some years in arri- 
ving. But it was soon coming — indeed was on its 
way from the moment of the anointing, not to say 
from eternity. The first visible step was when 
the Lord suffered an evil spirit to trouble Saul. 
The king could get no relief from this trouble save 
by the soothing strains of the musician. So it 
was proposed to seek out a musician of great skill 



DAVID. 235 

'to remain at court and afford relief as occasion 
should demand. When God has an object to ac- 
complish he is never at a loss for means. A 
courtier suddenly recollected the sweet music and 
comely person of a young Bethlehemite whom he 
had chanced to fall in with somewhere. A mes- 
senger was despatched. So David took his harp 
and went to the presence of smitten royalty, and 
found himself able by his minstrelsy to give help. 
As the rich strains gushed through his flying fin- 
gers the haggard face of the king grew soft and 
peaceful and the insane soul became itself again. 
Saul came to love the useful young stranger. He 
made him his armor-bearer. And now David 
was having his first lessons in court life; the king 
who was passing away was unconsciously helping 
to train the king who was coming. 

The lad, however, does not seem to have re- 
mained long at court. As the monarch recovered 
his tone of mind, and engaged in those contests 
with surrounding peoples which were seldom sus- 
pended, the young minstrel gradually came to be 
overlooked and returned to his father's house. 
He resumed his shepherd's crook — perhaps with 
new relish after his experience of the tinsel and 
artificiality and intrigues and jealousies of court 
life. But is not the stream of providence flowing 
backward? A little while ago he seemed ap- 
proaching the promised kingdom; now he seems 
to be going away from it. Has God forgotten or 



23^ LONG AGO. 

changed his purpose? "Certainly not," says 
the wholesome soul of the son of Jesse, "but 
then — ' ' He gives it up. He does not under- 
stand the way in which he is being led — any 
more than Joseph did or Moses or some one of us. 
" By faith and not by sight" is the motto for 
us all. It is a tortuous road that the good man 
travels ; it accommodates itself to local difficul- 
ties; now it goes to the right hand and now to 
the left; here it ascends the mountain and there 
it seems to descend; nevertheless, on the whole, 
progress towards the summit is made. David on 
the whole is making progress towards his summit, 
though for the present he seems descending. 
Perhaps he says to himself as he again leads out 
the sheep from the fold, " The Lord did not say 
when I should be king. He did not warrant me 
against delays and bufferings on my way to the 
throne. Did not Joseph go down into a pit and 
a dungeon before reaching his destined place? 
Did not Moses' way to his mission lie through 
forty years of sheep-keeping in the wilderness?" 
So the pious lad schooled himself to patience and 
trust in God. And again the cheerful notes of 
his pipe floated over the Bethlehem pastures, say- 
ine, "God's time is the best time." In these 
quiet, rural scenes let him for a while longer ma- 
ture in thought and principle, grow strong and 
healthy in body, struggle with the lion and bear 
that would waste his flocks, till he is bold enough 



DAVID. 237 

for any enterprise on which he can ask the divine 
blessing; and let him hold himself in readiness 
against the time when heaven shall sonnd to him 
a trumpet. 

At length the trumpet sounded. Ho, David! 
Come out of thy obscurity and return to it no 
more. Ho, Israel ! fix national eyes on the splen- 
dor of those qualities by which your God has pre- 
pared this stripling to bear rule among men. 
Ho, elders of Bethlehem! you who saw the se- 
cret anointing and have ever since secretly 
watched the lad as year after year he has gone 
in and out among you, now stand ready and see 
him acting on the wider arena of the battlefield 
and the kingdom! 

War again broke out between Israel and the 
Philistines. The hostile armies came face to face 
near Bethlehem. They glared at each other from 
the slopes of two mountains between which lay a 
valley of considerable width. Into this valley 
descended one day from the heathen army a man 
of enormous stature, armed to the teeth. On he 
came till near the Hebrew lines. When they 
saw more clearly his huge proportions, his spear 
like a weaver's beam, and every appearance of a 
terrible strength and ferocity, their hearts sank 
within them. Their dismay was increased at the 
sound of his terrible voice. He stood and shout- 
ed defiance. He demanded that the fortunes of 
the war should be staked on the issue of a single 



238 LONG AGO. 

combat between himself and any one whom they 
might choose. He challenged their mightiest to 
come out against him. Not a soul in all the host 
dared to accept the challenge. In all that wide 
array not a man could be found who, for any con- 
sideration, was willing to step forth to such un- 
equal strife. Twice a day for forty days the giant 
repeated the challenge. Twice a day for forty 
days the ranks of Israel trembled at his haughty 
defiance. What, can no one be found to take 
away this reproach? Must it be told in Gath 
and published in the streets of Askelon that the 
God of Israel could not find a single champion 
among all his worshippers? Is there nobody 
strong enough in God, and enough concerned for 
the honor of his great name and of the nation, to 
do battle with this blasphemer? No, not even 
the offer of uncounted gold, of the freedom of 
Israel, and of the honor of an alliance with the 
royal family can rouse the stunned manhood that 
cowers behind those entrenchments. 

In this trying time God rose in self-vindica- 
tion. He sounded his trumpet for David. It 
seemed to David the voice of his father Jesse say- 
ing to him, "Run to the camp, to thy brethren, 
and see how they fare." So he came to the 
camp — came just in the nick of time, for just then 
the gigantic Philistine w T as parading himself in 
the plain, repeating his blasphemous defiances, 
and sending dismay and flight among the He- 



DAVID. 239 

brews. As David saw and listened lie was rilled 
with self- forgetful indignation. "Who is this 
uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the 
armies of the living God? I will go against 
him." 

His words came to the king. Saul wished to 
see the person who dared to undertake what his 
doughtiest veterans had shrunk from. When 
David was brought before him he was concerned 
at the youthful and unwarlike appearance of the 
proposed champion and pronounced him insuffi- 
cient. But the youth insisted. He was not 
afraid. The battle was the Lord's. The Lord 
had not failed him when the wild beast to be 
fought was in the form of a lion; he would not 
fail him now that the wild beast was in the form 
of a man. At last the king gave a reluctant con- 
sent. Then David, declining Saul's armor, took 
a sling and a few small stones and went forth into 
the plain. Both armies stood watching. As Is- 
rael measured the stripling against the giant their 
faces grew dark with the assurance of defeat. As 
the Philistines measured the stripling against the 
giant their faces grew bright with the assurance 
of victory. 

As for the giant himself, great was his scorn 
of the unarmed pigmy whom he saw approaching. 
He felt his little finger to be thicker than the 
loins of David. The great bearded man with his 
helmet of brass and mail of five thousand shekels 



240 LONG AGO. 

and spear-head of six hundred shekels of iron 
thought it a contemptible victory he was about to 
have over the girl-faced foe with only a sling. 
Ah, he does not see that greater One than himself 
who marches by the side of the youth, and makes 
his heart fearless, and makes his hand skilful, as 
he slips a smooth stone into his sling. Thrice 
around his head circled and hummed that stone. 
Away it sprang, swifter than the winds, to the 
enemy's forehead. It sank into his brain. Down 
went the huge form crashing. David ran and 
beheaded Goliath with his own sword. The ar- 
rant boaster will never boast again, that man of 
many battles will never fight another; all be- 
cause he disowned God, and so God disowned 
him. 

This great feat made David the idol of the 
hour. His praises resounded through the nation. 
The return of the army from pursuing the panic- 
smitten foe was one continuous ovation to the 
young champion. Every hamlet poured out its 
rejoicing daughters to welcome and celebrate him. 
In this delirium of the national gratitude Saul 
was comparatively overlooked. u Saul has slain 
his thousands," sang the people, "and David his 
ten thousands." The jealousy of the king was 
roused. "What more could he have but the 
kingdom !" So the idol of the people came to be 
envied, feared, and hated by the king. On one 
pretext and another he delayed receiving him as 



DAVID. 241 

son-in-law; and when compelled by circumstan- 
ces to fulfil his engagement he still persevered in 
his hostility. He meant death. Time and again 
the javelin flew from the hand of the king. Time 
and again the youth narrowly escaped. A mar- 
vellous friendship had sprung up between him and 
Jonathan, the son of Saul; but even Jonathan was 
unable to protect his friend save by sending him 
away. Would even that protect him? For a 
time it seemed as if it would not. An evil spirit 
which no music could cast out seemed again to 
possess the king. He hunted David through all 
the coasts of Israel. From city to city, from cave 
to cave, hurried the panting deer; but the hunters 
were never far behind him. Perhaps he felt at 
times that such a life was not worth the living. 
Was this his promised kingdom ? Was this what 
Samuel meant when he poured the oil on his 
head — a kingdom of peril and vagrancy, a crown of 
martyrdom ? Would it not have been wonderfully 
better for him if he had remained quietly with the 
sheep, and his name had never been heard outside 
of little Bethlehem ? Do not say it, O short-sight- 
edness ! Keep up heart, O son of Jesse ! The end 
is sure though the way to it is rough. Has He 
spoken and shall He not make it good? It may 
be to-morrow, it may be next year, it may be 
when thy brown locks are white and scanty with 
age; but sooner or later it is sure to be. So bate 
not one jot of hope and heart though for the pres- 

LtnfT Ago, J 5 



2 4 3 LONG AGO. 

ent the time be midnight without any stars. Who 
told thee (or any of us) that there would be no 
cross on the way to a crown ? 

From the court to Ramah, from Ramah to 
Naioth, from Naioth to Nob, from Nob to Gath, 
from Gath to a cave in Adullam near Bethlehem. 
Here he was joined by his brothers and all the 
house of his father. By degrees others came to 
him — the needy, the debtors, and such as for any 
cause were discontented with the Government — 
till he found himself at the head of four hundred 
men. After lying secreted with this force for 
some time in various wild places, and finding 
himself still in danger from the relentless pursuit 
of Saul, whom he twice narrowly escaped and 
twice magnanimously spared, he passed over 
again into the country of the Philistines. Here 
he was kindly received on account of his supposed 
hostility to Israel. A village was assigned him 
which he and his band occupied without disturb- 
ance during the remainder of the reign of Saul. 

That reign ended on the bloody field of Gil- 
boa. There fell Saul and all the members of his 
family who were fitted to succeed to his throne. 
All along, David had been tempted to try to hurry 
up his kingdom by a resort to criminal or doubt- 
ful measures; time and again the life of Saul was 
in his hand; but he steadily refused to help him- 
self in any unrighteous or questionable way. He 
meant to keep God on his side at all costs. At all 



DAVID. 243 

costs he meant to keep himself on God's side. 
Wise young man ! Now his patience and consci- 
entiousness shall be rewarded. The door which 
he refused to batter down God has opened for him. 
He sees just within a vacant throne and millions 
of beckoning hands. Yet he indulges in no un- 
seemly rejoicing. He was sorry to rise by means 
of such a fall. He shows all the marks of a sin- 
cere and profound grief for the sad fate of Saul. 
The man who came to boast of having killed him 
was himself slain; the men of Jabesh-Gilead who 
gave his remains honorable interment were praised 
and rewarded. A noble elegy, that spontaneously 
sings out pathos and sublimity like a chime of 
cathedral bells, was composed in honor of the dead 
monarch and his son Jonathan. Noble Jonathan, 
hapless Jonathan! the most unselfish and magnan- 
imous of friends, how could such a father have 
such a son ! And most pathetically did David 
bewail that wonderful friend. The fact is, David 
was one of the myriad-minded men of the world, 
had a great genius for loving as well as for sing- 
ing and fi°:htinq- and o^overninq: and writing, and 
knew how to prize and reciprocate a rare friend- 
ship as well as, what was much harder, how to 
forgive a rare hostility. In that famous requiem, 
so touching to all hearts, the conqueror of Goli- 
ath appears as a conqueror of himself. In it are 
blended the genius of manliness, the genius of 
religion, and the genius of song. The swan of 



244 LONG AGO. 

Avou, or the swan, of Scio never sang as sweetly 
as the swan of Bethlehem. 

David was now at the very steps of the prom- 
ised throne. All that was lacking was the formu- 
lated voice of the people bidding him ascend. 
This was almost immediately heard. His an- 
ointing by Samuel had, probably, become known; 
he was a member of the royal family by marriage; 
no other surviving member of that familv had a 
hand strong and skilful enough to guide the He- 
brew state in such a stormy time; his prudence, 
his chivalry, his skill in war and government, his 
engaging manners, and his extraordinary piety 
had long been universally known and admired. 
When, therefore, on the death of Saul he made 
his appearance in Judah, that tribe cordially wel- 
comed him as king. The other tribes were for a 
while kept from doing the same by a military 
clique who raised to the throne a feeble son of 
Saul through whom they governed. But this 
state of things could not last. In a short time the 
vigor and ability of David had united all the 
tribes under that sceptre which was his from the 
Ivord.. 

How King David made Jerusalem his capital; 
how he established there a splendid national wor- 
ship; how he prospered in all the wars he under- 
took with neighboring peoples; how to his accom- 
plishments as a warrior and statesman he added 
those of a prophet and inspired writer and sacred 



DAVID. 



245 



bard; How he sometimes sinned greatly and was 
greatly chastised; how he was troubled by the 
misconduct of some of his children, and even his 
throne and life put in jeopardy; how ardently he 
wished to build a temple for Jehovah, and labored 
to gather for his successor the means of doing 
what was not permitted to himself; how in his 
last days he made his son Solomon king to pre- 
vent the evils of a disputed succession; how he 
closed his eyes in his old age on a kingdom which 
he had raised to exceeding prosperity — we may 
not linger to describe. Suffice it to say, the reign 
of David is glorious in the annals of Israel; and 
his name, together with the names of Abraham 
and Moses, is to-day the dearest and proudest of 
all names to the Jew. He reigns now more wide- 
ly and illustriously than he ever did in what is 
called his lifetime: for the record of his life and 
his incomparable Psalms are singing to-day in all 
the great languages of the world. David the 
shepherd, and David the musician, and David the 
champion, and David the exile, has indeed at last 
become David the king. 

The Scriptures are no hero-worshippers. 
They are not like the tombstones in our ceme- 
teries — recording virtues and nothing else. They 
have the air of telling the whole truth about a 
man. The Old Testament history of Israel can 
hardly be pleasant reading to an Israelite, it is so 
outspoken about the national follies and sins. 



246 LONG AGO. 

Just so in dealing with individuals — both good 
and bad traits appear. If there is a great mole on 
a beautiful face it is sure to appear in the picture 
which the sun takes. Let painters and poets 
flatter, let tombstones lie, but the Bible photog- 
raphy will give the exact thing, let come what 
will. That is the way the book impresses us. It 
is nobly frank and faithful to fact. David's fol- 
lies and sins are told as well as his wisdoms and 
virtues. The account is a leaf torn from actual 
life. It is saturated with an air of truthfulness. 
This is one reason why the Scriptures so inspire 
confidence in thoughtful and candid men. The 
Book is not after the style of Oriental fictions; nor 
after the style of many other fictions, not Oriental, 
that call themselves biographies and histories. 

David fell into great sins. Nevertheless the 
Bible asks us to regard him as, on the whole, a 
man of extraordinary goodness. Was he not a 
"man after God's own heart"? Is not his ex- 
ample held up as a model for kings? and if one 
of his successors does badly is he not said not 
to walk in the steps of his father David ? How 
comes it that God passes so favorable a judgment 
on the sinner David? Why was he pronounced 
so great a saint when he was actually so great a 
sinner? The explanation is not hard to find. 
First, the great sins of David were in violent con- 
trast with the tenor of his life: if they were very 
great they were also very few. Second, he never 



DAVID. 247 

sinned greatly without greatly repenting: his re- 
pentance trod swiftly in the track of his sin and 
was very keen and thorough. Third, his lot after 
he became king was one of unusual temptation; 
his life was largely spent in camps, which have 
always been noted unfriends to godly living. 
Moreover he was an absolute monarch; flattery 
and subserviency met him wherever he turned; 
facilities and inducements for criminal indulgence 
offered themselves on every hand. None of us, 
probably, have anything like the temptations that 
assailed David. Now all such things were taken 
into account in the divine estimate of him. And 
the divine estimate of us is on the same principles. 
God asks what is the general tenor of our lives. 
He asks whether we are thoroughly sorry for the 
sins into which we have fallen. If he sees that 
amid great temptations we sin seldom and repent 
deeply, he will still account us saints, even 
though our sins bear the worst names. 

This view must not be allowed to quiet any 
man in his sins. The commission of great sins 
does not indeed prove that a man is unrenewed 
and unsafe; but it always does so unless those sins 
are heartily sorrowed for, and striven against, and 
unless they are flatly opposed to his general char- 
acter and conduct. Let no one take comfort in 
thinking of David's sins till he has imitated Da- 
vid's penitence and generally illustrious piety. 



X. THE OVERCAST DAY. 



SOLOMON 
The Royal ©age 



HISTORY OF SOLOMON. 2 si 



X. HISTORY OF SOLOMON. 

The fortunes of Israel touched their highest 
point in the times of David and Solomon, and 
chiefly by means of these monarchs. The one 
knew how to lay the foundation, the other how 
to raise the edifice. The one was a man of war, 
and could subdue enemies; the other was a man 
of peace, nourishing the country by wise govern- 
ment and pacific statesmanship. It is hard to 
say who was the greater prince: both were splen- 
did in different lines of achievement, and both 
were indispensable to a full development of the 
national prosperity. 

Some account has been given of the character 
and exploits of David. We have seen him in the 
humble guise of a shepherd. We have followed him 
to the court of Saul and seen him exorcising by 
his soothing musical skill the demon who at times 
disturbed that unhappy monarch. We have gone 
back with him to the flocks at Bethlehem, and 
thence again, when the din of war was heard in 
the land, to the camp that rang and trembled with 
the defiant voice of the giant champion of Gath. 
We saw the sling and stone prevailing over bra- 
zen shield and beamy spear. Again we saw the 
young deliverer sitting among the courtly and 
the great, now the most honored of them all. 



252 I.OXG AGO. 

But deceitful is the favor of princes; and we were 
soon obliged to follow him into the desert fast- 
nesses where the exiles and outcasts seek to hide 
their hunted lives. Here he long tarried in a 
stern school of trouble — time consumed but not 
wasted, strength tasked but not broken. But at 
length his path rose again into the light until it 
came to Hebron and Jerusalem, and we heard 
acclaiming tribes from Dan to Beersheba acknowl- 
edging the throne which God had given to the 
son of Jesse. 

Wars, conspiracies, toils of statesmanship at 
home and abroad, followed for nearly forty years — 
a maze of glory and trouble, of saintly goodness 
and human failings, of illustrious usefulness and 
occasional harmfulness, in which we saw swayed 
with alternate hand the sword of the captain, the 
sceptre of the king, the harp of the minstrel, and 
the pen of the prophet. At last the time of death, 
drew niodi. The arm that could break a bow of 
steel was shrunken and feeble with years, and 
the feet once swift as those of the hind trembled 
as they were stayed by the hands of servants. 
Who shall succeed the departing king ? Of those 
many sons who shall occupy that throne which 
the favor of God has raised so high ? 

To Adonijah belonged the rights of primogen- 
iture. He said in his heart, "I will be king." 
And, lest by waiting till the death of his father 
some unlucky chance should step in between him 



HISTORY OF SOLOMON. 2$$ 

and the object of his ambition, he resolved to put 
forth a sudden and strong hand and seize it at 
once. So he prepared him chariots and horse- 
men and fifty men to run before him. He won 
over to his views the general of the army and one 
of the chief priests. Then, in order to collect his 
adherents and bring his plans to a head, he 
made a great feast from which all who were sup- 
posed to be unfavorable to his claims were care- 
fully excluded. 

But the project was a failure from the begin- 
ning. The throne was not Adonijah's from the 
Lord. It was not the eldest son of Jesse who 
was chosen to reign over Israel ; nor will heaven 
enthrone the eldest son of David. So a mine 
was suddenly sprung on the conspirators. Hints 
of what was going forward reached the prophet 
Nathan, a man of great boldness and decision. 
He at once sent in the mother of Solomon to 
carry the news to David, and to remind him of 
his arrangements already made by divine direc- 
tion for the succession. The aged king saw that 
no time was to be lost. Unless he would have 
the land become a prey to distraction and civil 
war, he must consent to abdicate at once in favor 
of him whom the will of God and his own judg- 
ment had pointed out as successor. So he said to 
his officers, " Take with you the servants of your 
lord, and cause Solomon my son to ride on my own 
mule, and bring him down to Gihon; and let Za- 



254 LONG AGO. 

dok the priest and Nathan the prophet anoint him 
there king over Israel, and blow ye with the trum- 
pet and say, God save King Solomon." This was 
immediately done, amid great demonstrations of 
popular satisfaction. The people piped and 
rejoiced with great joy, so that the earth rent with 
the sound of them. The thunder of that rejoicing 
reached the ears of the revelling conspirators. 
"What meaneth this tumultuous sound from the 
city? What can have happened to produce such 
a disturbance ? But yonder comes the son of the 
high priest — he can tell us. What now, Jona- 
than?" " Solomon sitteth on the throne of the 
kingdom : and, moreover, the king's servants 
came to bless our lord, King David, saying, God 
make tJie name of Solomon better than thy name, and 
make his throne greater than thy throne ; and the 
king bowed himself on the bed." Startling news 
this — and the plotters melted away from about 
Adonijah like snow at the breath of summer. 
Thus happily sped the coronation of Solomon. 

At this time Solomon is supposed to have 
been about seventeen years old. This was a very 
tender age to have charge of so great and turbu- 
lent a people. But David lived yet a little while 
to assist the youthful king with his counsels, and 
the wise and brave men who had been gradually 
collected about the throne of the sire remained 
about that of the son. Very solemn charges did 
Solomon receive from paternal lips to keep the 



HISTORY OF SOIXLAIOX. 255 

way of the Lord his God as being the only foun- 
dation of enduring prosperity. Unlike many 
parents of the present, David was not backward 
to insist to his son on the importance of a religious 
life above everything else. But that son had 
still better help for his station in the virtuous 
habits which he had already formed, and in the 
extraordinary judgment with which God and 
nature had endowed him. We learn from the 
Scripture that he was loved by God before his 
accession to the throne. In the formal charge 
which David gave him his wisdom is explicitly 
acknowledged as something already possessed. A 
diligent and exemplary childhood had gained him 
what is so indispensable to a ruler, the confidence 
and attachment of the people. Thus furnished 
Solomon began his reign. 

Shortly after his accession he made a great re- 
ligious festival in Gibeon. Notwithstanding his 
many accomplishments, perhaps because of them, 
his mind was pressed with a sense of insufficiency 
for the great post which he had been called 
to occupy. He longed to discharge its duties in 
the most effective and splendid manner — a wise 
ambition, worthy to be copied by all in their vari- 
ous spheres of service, whether great or small ! 
He slept. God came to him in a vision and said, 
Ask ivhat I shall give thee. Now, young prince, 
thou hast a chance that thousands would envy. 
Now thou canst stock thy kingdom with such 



256 LONG AGO. 

riches as can shame all the kings of the East. Or, 
if thou dost prefer martial renown, thy name shall 
be trumpeted to the four winds as hero and con- 
queror, and distant nations shall come bending to 
thee with tribute. But perhaps long life is thy 
desire. If so, accident and disease shall receive 
commission to shun thee, and though thousands 
fall at thy side and ten thousands at thy right 
hand, thou shalt wend thy way securely far beyond 
the term of ordinary life. So wonderful was the 
option granted the young king. But he was wise 
and upright enough to say, "I am but a little 
child; I know not how to go out or come in; and 
thy servant is in the midst of a great people which 
cannot be numbered or counted for multitude. 
Give therefore thy servant an understanding heart 
to judge thy people, that I may discern between 
good and bad." Happy people! blessed with a 
ruler wise enough to feel that he needed to be still 
wiser. God promised him what he had asked, and 
also what he had not asked. The chosen wisdom 
should come to him in a precious casket of riches 
and fame; and if he would continue faithful to God 
he should bear a charmed life down to extreme old 
age. Solomon awoke to find that he had been 
dreaming : but there was abundant evidence that, 
after the ancient manner, heaven had communed 
with him in the vision of the night. The beardless 
youth sat down on his tribunal and judged the peo- 
ple with more than the wisdom of the hoary sage. 



HISTORY OF SOLOMON. 257 

Such majesty of knowledge was seen guiding the 
stripling king that a deep awe of him settled over 
the whole land. His fame travelled to distant 
countries. The most gifted and experienced of 
their sons confessed themselves distanced. Among 
all the children of the East, also in Egypt, land 
of scholar and sage, were not found any whom 
genius and years, whom study and travel, had 
lifted to that proud height of intelligence where 
freely trod the agile foot of Solomon. He was 
wiser than Ethan the Ezrahite, and Heman and 
Chalcol and Darda, the sons of Mahol, men 
whom the a«:e till then had counted the wisest of 
mankind. And from distant lands the curious 
and the lovers of knowledge journeyed to Jerusa- 
lem to see and hear the king to whom God had 
given understanding and largeness of heart ex- 
ceeding much, even as the sand that is on the sea- 
shore. Never before had such wisdom been 
known — never since has such wisdom been dis- 
played by mere man. 

One of the first enterprises of Solomon's reign 
was the building of the temple which his father 
had planned, and for which he had made great pro- 
vision. The hands of David had been too much 
reddened with the blood of battle to allow of his 
performing so sacred a work. The great structure 
must rise in peaceful days and under the direction 
of one who had in his hand the wealth and leisure 
of a settled kingdom. No enemy annoyed young 

1.' ii • Ago. j 7 



258 LONG AGO. 

Solomon. The formidable tribes that were a 
thorn in the side of every previous ruler in Israel 
had been completely broken in the reign of his 
father. His treasury was filled by the tributes 
and presents of neighboring kingdoms. His own 
people were gathering in quiet, year after year, 
the abundance of the finest country beneath the 
sun, and were able to endure an immense outlay 
for a worthy house for Jehovah the worthiest. So 
Solomon proceeded to build. He gathered work- 
men from Sidon and cedars from Lebanon. More 
than a hundred and fifty thousand laborers toiled 
in the work. Skill and genius were summoned 
from far and near to superintend the brute forces 
and toiling hands. Precious woods and metals 
were lavished without stint. In seven years 
there stood complete on Mt. Moriah a structure 
unequalled in costliness and magnificence by any- 
thing before erected by man. 

Then came the fitting dedication. Amid as- 
sembled Israel and with sacrifices almost without 
number the ark of the covenant was borne to its 
place in the Holy of Holies. The Shechinah filled 
the house with wondrous light. Then kneeled 
the king in the midst of his people, and stretched 
forth his hands towards heaven, and uttered that 
consecrating prayer whose eloquent words have 
stirred all the ages since and have set apart so 
many sanctuaries, homely and magnificent, to the 
worship of God. A feast of fourteen days was 



HISTORY OF SOLOMON. 259 

kept from the entering in of Hamath unto the 
river of Egypt. And the people blessed the king, 
and went to their tents joyful and glad of heart 
for all the goodness that the Lord had done for 
David his servant and for Israel his people. 

The wisdom of Solomon taught him not to 
pass the time of peace in inglorious inactivity. 
Such great powers and opportunities as he pos- 
sessed were bound to do great things. So he built 
a navy at the Red Sea. He made a league with 
the Tynans that admitted him to a share of their 
lucrative commerce. The vine-clad hills of his 
kingdom, and its wide vales teeming with the 
fruits of secure and general industry, furnished 
the royal merchant with abundant exports. In 
exchange for these he received the purple of the 
Tyrians, the fine linen and horses and chariots of 
Egypt, the ivory and spices and gems and almug- 
trees and gold of Tarshish and Ophir and Spain 
and Northern Africa. His caravans of traffic 
stretched their long lines east and south, and 
from Tadmor and Thapsacus brought home the 
rich products of India and Arabia. In this way 
the kingdom soon rose to opulence and splendor 
without a parallel in those times. Silver was of 
small account at Jerusalem. Choice cedar was 
as plentiful as the sycamore of the vale. The 
court of Solomon became the scene of a stupend- 
ous magnificence which dazzled and astonished 
even Oriental minds. He has gotten control of 



26o LONG AGO. 

the genii, said they. They bring him treasures 
from the gem-lit realms beneath the land and the 
sea, said they. And Solomon, the king of magi- 
cians, is the Solomon that lingers in the Arabian 
stories of to-day. When the queen of Sheba 
came to test the accuracy of the report which had 
reached her concerning the prosperity and wisdom 
of the Hebrew monarch, and had seen with her 
own eyes the house he had built and the meat of 
his table and the sitting of his servants and the 
attendance of his ministers and their apparel and 
the ascent by which he went up to the house of 
the Lord, there was no more spirit in her. Strange 
to say, the half had not been told her. God had 
fulfilled his promise: Solomon was the richest as 
well as the wisest of men. 

Another part of the divine promise also saw 
fulfilment. Solomon lived to be an old man. 
One could almost be sorry for this; for when he 
was old he forsook the God who had done so much 
for him. Had he remained faithful his wonder- 
ful prosperity would have continued to the end, 
his white hairs would have gone down to the 
tomb unshorn of a single ray that gilded their 
raven prime. It is a grief to one reading the his- 
tory of this brilliant monarch to come at last to 
pages darkened with the record of his sin and 
waning glory. A little longer perseverance in 
the good way of David his father would have per- 
mitted us to follow his whole course with un- 



HISTORY OF SOLOMON. 261 

mixed satisfaction; and, as we saw him borne tq 
sleep with his fathers amid the tears and blessings 
of his people, w r e should have rejoiced over that 
day that had seen no clouds, over that sun that 
knew how to set as well as rise in glory, over at 
least one ornament of human nature whose vir- 
tue was fairly matched by his circumstances and 
always remained unconquered by them. Polyg^ 
amy was Solomon's bane. In the decay of his 
powers the wives whom he had taken from the 
neighboring heathen gained a pernicious ascend- 
ency over him. They gradually warped his mind, 
first into a toleration of idol- worship, and then 
into countenancing and practising it. He not 
only allowed them to celebrate their various pagan 
rites, but he gave them aid in the building of 
altars and shrines — as to Chemosh the abomina- 
tion of Moab, and Moloch the abomination of the 
children of Amnion. He became very "liberal;" 
nobody should charge him with bigotry and nar- 
row-mindedness and sectarianism. But he did 
not stop at toleration and effusive liberality. That 
regal form on which the people for nearly forty 
years had looked with pride and awe as the em- 
bodiment of all that was splendid and good was 
seen heading the processions of Ashtaroth; that 
head crowned by the grace of God with almost 
superhuman majesty was seen bowed low before 
an image of Milcom or Baal; that hand which 
had received from Jehovah a philosopher's stone 



262 LONG AGO. 

capable of turning all base things into gold was 
seen lifted in supplication before altars to the sun 
and moon and seven stars. Solomon has become 
an idolater. Alas, how has the gold dimmed and 
the fine gold changed! God could not pass over 
such defection, even though preceded by a long 
life of exemplary fidelity. The dishonor done to 
religion was gross; the harmfulness of the exam- 
ple was in proportion to the greatness of his posi- 
tion and fame. So God fought against the sin- 
ner. Enemies rose on every hand to embitter his 
last days. The prosperity that had waxed and 
waxed as if it would never stop now waned and 
waned as if it w T ould never stop. Once more 
God appeared to him, not as of old with word 
of benediction and promise, but with the stern 
tones of reprimand and threat. The glory of his 
house should cease. But two tribes should adhere 
to his son. For faithful David's sake, and not for 
his own, the kingdom should be continued to 
him during the poor remainder of his days. Did 
not the wise Solomon know that God was a jeal- 
ous God? Had he not received benefits enough 
from heaven to bind him to its service with links 
of steel ? No, not for thy sake, O Solomon, will 
the chief disasters tarry till thy grave is made. 
Thy father was steadfast to the end, and it is in 
honor of him that God will treat thee better than 
thou deservest. Thus went down in clouds the 
bright day of Solomon the Magnificent. 



HISTORY OF SOLOMON. 263 

We see that no amount of genius and knowl- 
edge furnishes a perfect security against great 
moral miscarriages. I may speak my three thou- 
sand proverbs and my songs may be a thousand 
and five; I may speak of trees, from the cedar 
that is in Lebanon even unto the hyssop that 
springeth out of the wall, also of beasts and of 
fowl and of creeping things and of fishes; and 
yet, like the unrivalled monarch who did all this, 
become an apostate ere my sun goes down. The 
natural tendency of great talents and information 
is unquestionably in favor of religion; but it is a 
tendency which all experience goes to show can 
easily be overborne by our disordered passions. 
Brilliant abilities could neither keep Voltaire in 
Christianity nor Satan in heaven. To make 
men Christians, and to keep them so, a few breaths 
of heartfelt prayer are worth more than all the 
science in the world. A humble dependence on 
the strength of the Almighty will keep us sound 
in faith and practice, when the mind of a Newton 
would leave us pitiable wrecks. Indeed, every- 
thing besides divine aid is nothing more than a 
dam of rushes in the path of a mountain torrent. 
Let the tide of temptation and depravity swell 
upon us, and nothing but the hand of God can 
keep us from being carried away. 

God will not overlook the backslidings of men, 
however excellent their previous conduct. It is 
even as he says by Ezekiel, "When a righteous 



264 LONG AGO. 

man doth turn from his righteousness and commit 
iniquity, he shall die and the righteousness which 
he hath done shall not be remembered. " Let 
David sin and he must choose between famine, 
defeat, and pestilence, though he had long been 
mainly a man after God's own heart. For a large 
part of his life Solomon copied the general de- 
portment of his father. It is even said that he 
loved God and that God loved him. Neverthe- 
less, the backsliding when it came found a heavy 
rod uplifted. Some blows fell soon, others were 
scattered along through the whole remainder of 
the culprit's days. Some fell directly on his own 
person, others reached him through his posterity. 
Is there not a warning to us in this fact ? Do we 
not hear from it a voice rising clear and shrill 
above the din of temptation, "Forsake God at 
your peril!" And there is another question to be 
asked and answered, "If judgment begin at the 
house of God, what shall the end be of them that 
obey not the gospel?" 

People are apt to congratulate themselves on 
being the children of rich and famous parents. 
But it is far better to be the children of parents 
that fear God. The history of Solomon shows us 
that a virtuous ancestry may be a shield to a man 
as well as a crown. "For David thy father's 
sake I will not rend the kingdom from thee in 
thy days." Had Solomon been the son of Saul 
instead of the son of David this forbearance would 



HISTORY OF SOLOMON. 265 

not have been shown him. The seed of the 
righteous shall be blessed. Even as God visits 
the iniquities of the fathers upon the children 
unto the third and fourth generation of them that 
hate him, so he visits the virtue of the fathers 
upon their descendants. Bach one of us who can 
look back on a praying and Christian stock may 
count himself a safer man for it. For its sake 
heaven will deal more gently with him in the 
day of his trespass. Very possible is it, O unre- 
pentant son, that your day of grace would have 
closed ere this had it not been for the fact that 
your mother walked with God. Hence we do 
not so readily despair of the wayward children of 
devoted Christians as of others. There is hope 
for a son of David long after its blessed light has 
gone out for a son of Belial. We remember the 
prayers murmured over the sleeping infant, the 
mingled counsels and prayers of a later period; 
and so we keep up heart sometimes till beyond 
the eleventh hour in our looking for the divine 
interposition. Thus natural affection should teach 
parents to be Christians. Would they screen sons 
and daughters from harm ? Would they secure to 
them special opportunities and privileges? Let 
them see to it that their Solomons have Davids 
for fathers. Their devout and saintly piety and 
good works may camp about their families like 
defending angels. 



XL REFORMS BY FIRE AND 
SWORD. 



JOSIAH 
Ttie Young Reformer. 



JOSIAH. 269 



XL JOSIAH. 

In the absence of Moses on Mt. Sinai the 
Israelites made for themselves an idol of gold. 
How did Moses on his return treat the curious 
and costly monster? "And he took the calf 
which they had made and burned it in the fire 
and ground it to powder, and strewed it upon the 
water and made the children of Israel drink 
of it." 

On the arrival of Israel in Canaan they found 
the land full of idols of wood and stone, of silver 
and gold. How did Joshua and his captains treat 
the curious and costly monsters, with their shrines 
and temples? u They utterly destroyed all the 
places wherein the nations served their gods, on 
the hi^h mountains and on the hills and under 
every green tree; and overthrew their altars and 
brake their pillars and burned their Asherim with 
fire; and they hewed down the graven images of 
their gods and destroyed the names of them out 
of that place." 

David burned the images found in the camp of 
the Philistines. Jehu brought forth the images 
of Baal and burned them ; and he brake down the 
image of Baal and the house of Baal and made it 
a draught house "unto this day." The good 



270 LONG AGO. 

King Asa cut down the idol of his mother, and 
stamped it and burned it at the brook Kidron. 
At the instance of Jehoiada the priest, the people 
of Jerusalem went to the house of Baal and brake 
it down, and brake his altars and his images in 
pieces, and slew Mattan the priest of Baal before 
the altars. In the beginning of the reign of 
Hezekiah there was a great revival in connection 
with the Passover, and all the people that were 
present went out into the cities of Judah and 
brake the images in pieces and threw down the 
high places and the altars out of all Judah and 
Benjamin, in Ephraim also and Manasseh, until 
they had utterly destroyed them all. 

But the greatest iconoclast of them all was 
young Josiah, king of Judah. 

At the death of Solomon down went his mag- 
nificent kingdom. Ten tribes at once forsook his 
foolish son. The remaining two tribes forsook 
the Lord though they did not forsake the family 
of David. And yet that family soon deserved to 
be forsaken. Out of fifteen successive monarchs 
in Judah only about half were decently good men. 
Of the rest hardly a single good thing could be 
said. They were hateful to both God and man — 
corrupt and corrupting. The consequence was 
that when Josiah, the fifteenth from Solomon, 
came to the throne he found his subjects worse 
than the heathen whom the Lord cast out before 
the children of Israel by the hand of Joshua. 



JOSIAH. 271 

The land was full of idols. Images of the vilest 
gods stood in the temple itself. Within its two 
courts smoked altars to all the host of heaven. 
All the abominations of the Amorites were repro- 
duced and exceeded. So horribly foul was the 
land that the Lord sent his prophets to say, "lam 
bringing such evil on Jerusalem and Judah that 
whosoever heareth of it, both of his ears shall tin- 
gle ; and I will wipe Jerusalem as a man wipeth 
a dish, wiping it and turning it upside down." 

In this state of things Josiah began his reign. 
His father Amon was a wicked man. His grand- 
father Manasseh seems to have been for a time 
more wicked still. But Josiah himself was a very 
different character — very pious and devout from 
early childhood. How this came about is a mys- 
tery. The swift narrative does not stop to explain. 
Heredity was largely against the child. The 
example and fashion of the time were enormously 
against him. And yet somehow he overcame 
all obstacles and became a saint. Perhaps the 
explanation is that at the early age of eight years 
he fortunately lost his wicked father and so fell 
into some good hands (say the hands of Hilkiah 
the high priest and Shaphan the scribe) for the 
very critical next few years. Possibly he had a 
godly mother — for it is by no means an unknown 
thing for a bad man to have a good wife — a godly 
mother who watched over him and counselled 
him and prayed for him and brought good men 



2-J2 LONG AGO. 

around him and kept the bad away. He had 
also a repentant grandfather. In some such way 
and by some such means that did not defy nature 
Josiah took early to right courses; and, when in 
young manhood, he came into full possession of 
the kingly power he looked about with horror on 
the deplorable condition of his people. So we 
see that, whatever the forces of heredity may be, 
they are not of the invincible sort. We need not 
despair of the children of a wicked ancestry. 
Wickedness does not so "run in the blood " but 
that it may be separated very early in life and 
under very unfavorable circumstances. 

Yes, Josiah looked about on the condition of 
things with horror, and proceeded to act accord- 
ingly. The bold and uncompromising aggres- 
siveness w r ith which his fiery youth went forth on 
the kingdom of darkness ; the relentless severity 
and thoroughness with which he dealt with the 
idols, their shrines and their appurtenances, 
throughout his kingdom; the fierce foray he made 
upon them with demolishing axes and mattocks ; 
how carved work and molten work, altars and 
statues, went down swiftly into despised rubbish 
and powder, even unto Naphtali, is thus described: 
"In the eighth year of his reign, while he was 
yet young, he began to seek after the God of 
David his father; and in the twelfth year he be- 
gan to purge Judah and Jerusalem from the high 
places and the Asherim and the carved images 



JOSIAH. 2J 3 

and the molten images. And they brake down 
the altars of Baalim in his presence; and the ima- 
ges that were on high above them he cut down ; 
and the Asherim and the carved images and the 
molten images he brake in pieces and made dust 
of them and strewed it on the graves of them that 
had sacrificed to them. And he burned the bones 
of the priests on their altars and cleansed Judali 
and Jerusalem. And so did he in the cities of 
Manasseh and Ephraim and Simeon, even unto 
Naphtali, with their mattocks round about." 

This conduct of the young king shows several 
correct things in him. 

First, he firmly believed in God — and did not 
believe in idolatry. He believed in the old the- 
ology, the theology of his father David, and of 
those earlier fathers whom we call Moses and 
Abraham and Adam — and he did not believe in 
the new theology of Baal and Ashtoreth, or in 
that still newer and worse, viz., that there is no 
God at all. Josiah plainly had a creed; he be- 
lieved in something, and that quite strongly. This 
is one thing that I like about the young man. 

Another thing is that he was so ready to show 
to the world on what side he was. There were two 
parties in the land — the party of God and good- 
ness and the party of Satan and sin, and the lat- 
ter was by far the most popular. Some men in 
office would, under these circumstances, have 
been trimmers, non-committal men, would have 

Lo«TA S o. 1 3 



274 IX>NG AGO. 

balanced themselves on the fence so dexterously 
that neither party could claim them, or, more 
craftily still, so that both parties could claim. 
Plainly Josiah was not that sort of a man. He 
was prompt to show his hand on God's side. He 
held up his hand so high that the whole nation 
could see it, though almost the whole nation vo- 
ted the other way. Of course that is the sort of 
friend and servant that God likes and man re- 
spects. I am reasonably sure that even the un- 
godly of the land thought the more highly of the 
young monarch for his manly outspokenness and 
pronounced attitude on such fundamental mat- 
ters. 

Still another clear and satisfactory point is 
that Josiah threw all the weight of his example 
and position and influence of every kind on the 
side of God. He might have contented himself 
with merely holding up his hand, holding it up 
high. But he did not do this. He evidently 
thought that God had a right to have from him a 
much broader support than this. He was entitled 
to have him come out on His side with all his 
forces. So we say and believe. If a man believes 
in God and religion he is bound to take sides with 
them with might and main. Iyukewarmness has 
never been a favorite with heaven and never will 
be. 

Thus far we can go in commendation of Jo- 
siah. Can we go still farther and approve of his 



JOSIAH. 275 

methods of standing up for God and religion as 
detailed in the verses which have been cited ? I 
think that, considering the circumstances, we 
may. 

The reasons that lay at the bottom of this se- 
vere dealing with the objects and means of idola- 
try may have been as follows. First, there was 
the express divine command found in Exod. 
23:24. Then the whole spirit of the law of 
ceremonial cleanness was endangered by the pres- 
ence among the people of the symbols and imple- 
ments of even a disused abomination. Further, 
the abominableness of idolatry needed to be ex- 
pressed to the objective and materialized minds of 
those early days, and indeed of all times, in some 
striking, picturesque, intense, telling way; and 
that unpitying havoc that swept away, not only 
idolatry itself, but even the unconscious matter 
which it had touched, was well fitted to make the 
desirable impression. In that time, too, the peo- 
ple needed to be shown, as the people of India 
and the South Seas do to some extent in our 
times, that their idols could not save themselves, 
nor their temple, nor the smallest trifle of their 
belongings, from the worst of indignities: and the 
lookers-on, as they saw Baal and Ashtoreth and 
Dagon and Moloch lying battered and chipped 
among the fragments of their own altars, lost rev- 
erence for their helpless deities. They did well, 
those old iconoclasts, in sweeping clean away the 



276 IX>XG AGO. 

whole paraphernalia of idolatry — not sparing the 
rare silver and gold, not sparing the exquisite 
carvings and castings and architectures, not 
sparing the pictures and statues and vases and 
vestments rich with the best labor and skill of the 
land. 

Under the Christian Dispensation a new mode 
of dealing with idols and their belongings has 
gradually made its way into favor. At the civil 
establishment of Christianity in the Roman Em- 
pire, under Constantine and his immediate succes- 
sors, many temples of paganism were converted 
into Christian churches and many statues of the 
old deities passed unharmed into the cabinets of 
the great as mementos and treasures of art. Some 
of these have escaped through wars and vandal- 
isms down to our own times. The Pantheon still 
stands. Jupiters and Apollos in marble still hold 
their pedestals in European capitals. Yet, under 
the early Christian emperors, a frequent rule of 
procedure was the Jewish. Very many stately 
edifices were destroyed as polluted things. Works 
of great sculptors and architects which would now 
be worth each a king's ransom perished under 
the hammers and torches of devoted men who 
took for examples the Hezekiahs and Josiahs of 
the Old Dispensation, and " hated even the gar- 
ment spotted by the flesh.'* 

Then Christian Rome herself became idola- 
trous. From country to country the plague spread, 



JOSIAH. 2 7/ 

till Luther and his reforming companions found 
almost entire Europe bowing and praying and 
sacrificing to images — painted, molten, carved. 
The churches were filled with paintings and stat- 
ues of God and the saints to which religious 
homage was addressed. They were idol-temples 
in everything but the name. What should the 
reformers and their friends do as power gradually 
passed into their hands? Should they smite these 
really heathen structures and idols with Trior' s 
hammer, but in the name of Moses and the Second 
Commandment? Should they break down into 
rubbish those grand old cathedrals, cast to the 
waters and winds the shreds of Raphaels and 
Titians, and splinter into worthless stone those 
marble saints that almost seemed to look and live? 
Some thought they must; and here and there 
arose the din of demolition and the roar of pur- 
ging fires. Travellers are wont to lament over the 
sites of edifices costly and fair which fell a sacri- 
fice to the zeal of the idol-hating fathers. They 
look up, not infrequently, at defaced carvings and 
empty niches and fractions of canvas where once 
gathered the admiration of all beholders, only to 
hear it said, ''This was done by the reformers." 
But these destructions were exceptional. Most 
Protestants contented themselves with cleansing 
churches instead of destroying them, with remov- 
ing saints and Madonnas to cabinets and museums 
instead of turning them to smoke and powder. 



2;b LONG AGO. 

So survived the Westminster Abbeys, so manor 
houses and castles in England are now graced 
with ancient art. And now should papal Europe 
turn Protestant — that is, should idolatrous Europe 
turn Christian — very few persons would think it 
necessary to turn iconoclasts after the manner of 
Josiah, and to raze to their foundations St. 
Peter's and St. Mark's and the Duomo of Milan, 
and to empty their battered and ruined sculptures 
and paintings into the streets and rivers. There 
would be removals and lustrations and reconsecra- 
tions — the heathen temples would be adapted to a 
more spiritual worship; but the structures them- 
selves, in all their antique glory, would be care- 
fully preserved to serve the purposes of a purer 
gospel, and not a work of real merit in art 
would have reason to complain of the rough fin- 
gers and careless gait of those who carry them 
forth to new and more suitable homes in mansions 
and palaces. 

This, it seems, would be the proper dealing 
at the present day, just as the dealing of Josiah 
was the proper one in his day. Old Dispensation 
rules were the best for Old Dispensation times, 
just as the clothing anl subjection of childhood 
are better for it than are the dress and indepen- 
dence of manhood. Childhood once passed, a new 
system finds appropriate place. The national 
polity of the Jews has fulfilled its mission and is 
set aside. The svstem of ceremonial cleanness 



JOSIAH. 2/9 

and unclean 11 ess lias done its work and has been 
distinctly repealed. The riper age of the world 
permitted the milder Christian economy, with 
which naturally associates a milder way of oppo- 
sing idolatry. The idolatry of these later times is 
not, in general, of that sort that needs to be taught 
the helplessness of wooden and stone gods (the 
world has come to too much science and experi- 
ence) ; nor is it one that would be much kept 
back by the destruction of its material objects and 
appliances (the world has grown too rich). There 
are at present much more effectual means of pre- 
venting a relapse into superstition : they are the 
Bible and the science of the times, applied with a 
facility and power incredible to the ancients by 
means of preaching and printing and a host of in- 
ventions, all comprised and subordinated in a 
dispensation of the Spirit. The preaching of the 
cross is a more effectual iconoclast than Josiah with 
his axes and hammers. Knowledge falling in 
the shape of printed leaves, as in the shaking of 
autumnal woods, is a better security against the 
worship of images than are ruined sanctuaries and 
headless statues. A new moral power is now 
abroad whose symbol is a cloven fire-tongue, and 
which is winged and sandaled by all modern dis^ 
coverics for progress and triumph against all fcL 
lies and sins. God has now completed his stock 
of examples, in the sterner and sense-appealing 
variety, of the abominableness to him of idolatry; 



2SO LONG AGO. 

and the men in all time who need this sort of out- 
ward demonstration of the divine abhorrence can 
be referred to ample examples in the Old Testa- 
ment that breathe nothing but fire and sword. 

Now, in the spirit of the milder dispensation, 
let pagodas and mosques and cathedrals be 
cleansed and rededicated into Christian churches; 
and let the idols, according to their kind, either 
be shipped to illustrate missionary rooms and 
monthly concerts and museums or be cleft into 
fire-wood or be tossed scornfully to the moles and 
bats. Let apparent use determine which. In 
short, the main reasons for the sweeping severity 
of the early times no longer exist. Times change 
and methods must change with them. God is not 
now correcting an old mistake of policy; he has 
not become mutable; there is no letting down in 
these latter days of his law to what has been 
found to be incurable human infirmity; nor is the 
worship of idols any the less a crime now than it 
was anciently when Josiah did well in pitilessly 
hewing and bruising into destruction as many of 
them and theirs as he could lay hands on. But 
the law under which he acted has been super- 
seded by another adapted to a new age and more 
distinctly moral in its agencies. The time has 
come to work our levers for religion more on a 
moral fulcrum than was possible in the world's 
childhood. 

And this suggests the general fact that in the 






JOSIAH. 2Sl 

more advanced stages of individuals and commu- 
nities the chief stress is to be laid on moral means 
against sin. Childhood is the period for physical 
restraint and absolute coercion. Then the rod is 
in place. Then the hands may be bound to keep 
them back from mischief, or the doors bolted to 
keep the feet from going where they should not. 
Then there is special need that even the moral 
motives used have a strongly objective side and 
make a showy appeal to the senses. The power 
of self-government is weak r the experience noth- 
ing, the judging and reasoning faculty unprac- 
tised. For a time the mind is most surely 
reached and guided through the more developed 
body. Bodily habits are easily formed, and in the 
moulds of these the spiritual are best run. By 
pure authority and absolute compulsion, if need 
be, the outward forms of virtue should be estab- 
lished into habits as the best means of influencing 
the heart and judgment to the same. By these 
means reverence, obedience, prayer, Bible-read- 
ing, Sabbath observance should be firmly estab- 
lished in the body, which will then be a school- 
master in perpetual session to train the soul to 
goodness and Christ. 

But it is not lonQf that this method of training 
will answer. After a few years, if the parent has 
necrlected to use it, it is too late to bernn. The 
time has now come for a different style of dealing, 
and the best he can do is to work diligently the 



2Sz LONG AGO. 

system appropriate to the more advanced stage of 
development on which his son has entered. The 
child has become a youth. He is still to be gov- 
erned and trained, but it must be chiefly by moral 
means. From the necessity of the case, as he ad- 
vances towards manhood, he must be exempted 
more and more from the dominion of physical 
force, must be accustomed to thoughtfulness and 
self-direction amid temptations and responsibili- 
ties. The government of brute force, of bare 
authority, of present penalty, must gradually give 
place to the government of reason, conscience, 
and distant consequences. The two systems 
stand related to each other very much as the an- 
cient system of divine dealing with idolatry does 
to the modern — the one obstructing and subduing 
sin with the strong outward hand, the other rely- 
ing chiefly on moral influences for its success, as 
being better adapted to the riper age of the world. 
In the early times of New England the Gov- 
ernment was shaped largely after Moses, and un- 
dertook to enforce common religious duties by the 
civil arm. People must observe the Sabbath, 
must attend and support the sanctuary, must fast, 
must give their families religious instruction. 
The founders of the Commonwealths were homo- 
geneously good men; they wished to deter others 
of a different character from joining them; and 
they thought that it was their right and their 
policy to hedge up their own children to Chris- 



JOSIAH. 2S3 

tian principles and ways by civil as well as do- 
mestic and moral forces. Are we sure that their 
course was not the best on which to start a State? 
I am by no means prepared to say but that we are 
now in a better condition, by far, than we should 
have been had our fathers begun their settlements 
on less exacting principles. At any rate, it is 
easy to believe their policy the true one for the 
cruder societies of still earlier times, as it is the 
true one for every young family — the family 
which is the State in its simplest and original 
form. 

But the policy did not long remain proper for 
the colonies. Numbers increased, interests be- 
came complicated, sentiments differed; and at 
length it was agreed that among citizens the task 
of combating for Sabbath-keeping and other im- 
portant duties which the civil power had been 
trying to enforce must be thrown wholly on moral 
agencies. And it was rightly agreed. The com- 
munity had reached that stage in which no other 
system would work so well. Especially for us at 
the present time it is the best system. Religion 
in main aspects is flourishing under it as never 
before. The moral influences at our command 
are various, powerful, and easily applied, and the 
church needs the discipline of applying them. 
As matters now stand we know better what the 
moral condition of the community is than we 
could possibly know if the civil power were for- 



204 LONG AGO. 

cing all conduct into uniformity; and a sense of 
responsibility and of the necessity of vigilance 
and labor is more pressed on all good men. At 
the best, outward decorum is all that civil power 
can secure. It can never regenerate and build 
up men into Christian character. 

For these results we must still depend on 
moral means connecting the heart with the Holy 
Spirit; and it is doubtless much better for all par- 
ties, in the present state of society, that the means 
which must be relied on to secure the salvation of 
men should also be the means for securing the 
outward religious proprieties. 

We cannot go to men whom we see quietly 
working on the Sabbath and bid them cease in 
the name of the law and the prison. It is well. 
It is better for us and them that we are compelled 
to go and reason with them in the name of con- 
science, God, and the public welfare. We cannot 
make men place themselves regularly under the 
preaching of the gospel at the point of fines and 
civil disabilities. It is well that we cannot. It 
is better for us and for them that we are com- 
pelled to solicit and argue and deal closely with 
conscience on the basis of that higher law which 
bids us not forsake the assembling of ourselves to- 
gether. We cannot go to people who revile and 
denounce sacred things and check them with fear 
of constables and courts. All we can do is to re- 
prove and expostulate as they will have to answer 



JOSIAH. 285 

at the bar of God Almighty and of public opinion. 
And it is better so. Spiritual religion best works 
spiritual levers on a spiritual fulcrum. It is the 
appropriate method of the age. It is the New 
Testament way for New Testament times. In 
accordance with the spirit of this new economy, if 
our neighbors choose to set up an image of Baal 
or of the Madonna for worship, no Josiah will be 
seen going forth against their god or goddess with 
axes and hammers: the only things the idolaters 
will have to fear will be the common school, com- 
mon sense, and common conscience. It is the 
new order of things for the riper age of society. 
For us it is more powerful and reliable as a re- 
former and as an upholder of spiritual religion 
than the power of an emperor would be. 

Of course, it is an order of things that places 
the friends of religion under great responsibil- 
ity. What brute force cannot be invoked to do 
they must accomplish by their diligent and zeal- 
ous and skilful moral activities. They can ac- 
complish much or nothing, as they choose. Let 
them see to it that they accomplish much. So- 
ciety demands it of them. As they will answer it 
to God let them be up and doing — instructing 
men, persuading them, shining among them with 
a most influential example in favor of all that is 
good and against all that is evil. 

We are shut up to this way of proceeding 
against many great evils. The joss-house is an 



286 LONG AGO. 

abomination whether in San Francisco or New 
York; but it is not well to tear it down over 
the heads of the idolaters; there is a more ex- 
cellent way. It were a pity to abolish Ching 
Sing because in the Forum he says, "Come to 
Confucius." Let there be a symposium in which 
Sing Ching shall more attractively say, "Come 
to Jesus." The blatant atheism of Ingersoll is a 
very pestilent thing as it itinerates the laud over; 
and the brow of every good man is clothed with 
thunder towards the blasphemer. Nevertheless, 
hands off! let him go his rounds, but follow him 
with a mightier eloquence of truth and prayer. 
There are publishers who, although bearing the 
Christian name, issue year after year books that 
attack the very foundations of even natural reli- 
gion and good morals; and our souls are aflame at 
the execrable hypocrisy and treason; and we 
want, perhaps, to send Comstock to confiscate and 
despatch the whole establishment; but, all things 
considered, I suppose we ought to content our- 
selves with exposing, denouncing, and arguing 
against it. In certain institutions of learning, 
established for the defence of religion, may be 
found professors who are teaching against it — 
men who are set and kept in their places by Chris- 
tian officials. Perhaps it would not be wise, as 
things are, to invoke courts and constables to 
turn these men out of their positions, however 
much we may want to. We must set ourselves to 



JOSIAH. Z&J 

manufacture public opinion by speaking and wri- 
ting till it has become a throne of judgment and a 
Josiah against the offenders. 

But such mild means will not answer against 
all the evils that attack our present society. Some 
have to be gone forth against with the demolish- 
ing axes and hammers of the civil magistrates, 
and sometimes of other Josiahs under the name 
of Vigilance Committees. We are not to content 
ourselves with reasoning with a thief: the civil 
arm must smite him. It is not enough to in- 
struct and dissuade a man against slander: the 
courts must sentence him to a fine of, say, $20,000 
for trying to rob me of my good name. The dyn- 
amite anarchist has to be dealt with by something 
besides good advice and nosegays and fair eyes 
suffused with tears: he must hang. If parents are 
so foolish or so wicked as to neglect the common 
schooling for their children, the state in self-de- 
fence must make such schooling compulsory. If 
publishers are so lost to all conscience and shame 
as to issue obscene books and pictures, the law 
ought to come down on them with its posse conzita- 
tuSj and delight the children and all respectable 
adults with a glorious bonfire. If distilleries and 
saloons are flooding the country with poverty and 
crime and taxes and wretchedness, the Govern- 
ment should come to the rescue of moral suasion 
and go among the detected barrels and demijohns 
of liquid death after the manner of Josiah — that is 



288 LONG AGO. 

to say, breaking them in pieces with axes and 
hammers and spilling their contents into street 
and sewer. When reason and conscience have 
long been appealed to in vain may not society 
protect itself from intolerable evils by the "rough 
and ready" methods of the Old Dispensation? If, 
because there is money in it, the railroads send 
their shrieking and thundering trains past our 
churches on Sunday, and silence the voices of 
worship and grind exceeding fine under their 
iron wheels that sanctity of the Sabbath with 
which all other sanctities are so closely bound up, 
we must invoke the veto of the legislature and 
such heavy fines as shall be axes and hammers 
among their dividends. And if the Mormons un- 
dertake to practise polygamy on American soil 
they should find American law and troops too 
strong for them — should find all the Josiahs in the 
country up in arms against them, a Josiah in 
every citizen. And generally this should be the 
finding of all persons to whom liberty means per- 
mission to interfere with the liberty of other 
people. 



XII. A CHARIOT OF FIRE. 






L"ii,- Ago. IQ 



ELIJAH 
'Ptie Fearless Prophet 



ELIJAH. 29I 



XII ELIJAH, 

A certain Roman poet pictures a busy scene. 
It is the building of Carthage. Walls are rising, 
houses hastening to completion, crowds moving 
hither and thither, Queen Dido and her nobles 
offering a sacrifice in an unfinished temple, 
when, lo, the incensed air thins away and a 
stranger of wonderful mien stands out to view. 
Who is he ? Whence came he ? For what pur- 
pose has he come ? 

So suddenly appears Elijah on the stage of the 
Old Testament narrative, and to Ahab, king of 
Israel. Perhaps the king was riding in his char- 
iot along the streets of Jezreel. On turning a 
corner he found confronting him a man in simple 
garb but of venerable, resolute, and commanding 
aspect. "As the Lord God of Israel liveth before 
whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain 
these years but according to my word." This 
and no more said the stranger and was gone. 
Who is this man? Whence came he? Whither 
is he gone ? 

Such were the questions, we may suppose, 
which Ahab hastily asked of his attendants. 
None could answer. None had ever seen the 
man before, or perhaps had ever heard of him. 
And had we ourselves been there, we who have 



2^2 LONG AGO. 

the Bible in our hands, we could hardly have 
done better. For we could only have said, "This 
man is Elijah the Tishbite from Gi4ead;" and how 
little this means! To this day the early life, nay, 
the whole life of this extraordinary man up to 
this period, is practically a blank. Who his pa- 
rents were, what sort of training he had, how be- 
gan and advanced the mysteries of his religious 
and prophetic experience, by what providential 
events he was shaped for his work — of all such 
interesting matters we know absolutely nothing. 
His life as known to us begins almost at the end 
of it. A white-haired man is introduced to us as 
suddenly as he seems to have been to Ahab. The 
sacred historian, as it were, tears out a few of the 
last leaves of the prophet's long biography as it 
lay in the thought of God, and hands them over 
to us. We look, and lo, Elijah the Tishbite, an- 
nouncing a terrible famine on Israel! This from 
one sacred leaf. 

We take up another. The prophet is by the 
brook Cherith amid the solitudes beyond Jordan. 
He has gone there by divine command, and by 
divine command the ravens bring him for a year 
his daily bread. When the brook is drunk up by 
the drought, God sends his servant to Sarepta, 
there to be sustained for more than two years 
more— not by some wealthy noble who could well 
afford it, but by a poor widow already in such 
distress from the growing famine that there is 



ELIJAH. 293 

only a handful of meal and a pittance of oil left 
between her and death. But her faith is equal to 
the mighty strain laid upon it. She gives her 
last crust to the prophet; and the prophet's God 
sees to it that there is never any the less meal in 
her barrel or oil in her cruse as lonof as the famine 
remains in the land. And this is her least recom- 
pense. Her only child falls sick and dies: but 
great is thy faith, O woman; and so God comes to 
the rescue of the poor, heart-broken mother in the 
person of Elijah, and gives back a living son to her 
clasping arms and singing heart that said, " Now 
by this I know that thou art a man of God and that 
the word of the Lord in thy mouth is truth." 

And now another sacred leaf. Elijah again 
appears to Ahab as he rides into the country. 
Which is the king — the rider or the footman? 
With all the majesty of a divine commission 
shining in his eye and speaking with his tongue 
the king-footman rebukes the peasant-rider for 
his wickedness, and summons him in God's name 
to appear at Mt. Carmel, attended by the priests 
of Baal and all Israel. With the soreness of the 
great scourging famine still upon him, Ahab 
dares not disobey. 

And now see Carmel billowy with the assem- 
bled multitudes. Monarch and priests and nobles 
and commons from the whole land stand in vast 
and expectant assembly about Elijah. With 
fearless and trumpet voice he cries, " How long 



294 LONG AGO. 

halt ye between two opinions? If the Lord be 
God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him." 
He proposes a magnificent experiment. As every 
man of them, from Ahab downward, professes to 
want to know the truth as between God and 
Baal, let an altar be built to each of the rival 
deities, and let the one who answers by fire be ac- 
cepted as the national God. Agreed to. How 
for very shame could the Baalites refuse? And 
four hundred priests of Baal set up their altar, and 
from morning till noon cry unto their idol for de- 
scending fires. Of course in vain. In their per- 
plexity and mortification their fearless adversary 
stands and ridicules them. "You do not cry 
loud enough, O priests of Baal! Your god is 
asleep; you must put more strength to your voice 
or you will not succeed in waking him. Or, per- 
haps he is away on a journey; you must make 
more noise or the sound will not reach him." 
So scorns away the solitary champion of Jehovah. 
And the priests clamor still louder, and frantically 
cut themselves with knives and lances till the 
blood gushes out upon them. So hour after hour 
passes, and at length the declining sun looks down 
on men worn out with a senseless and fruitless 
violence. Baal was still silent as death. Not a 
spark, not a sound, gives sign of his hearing. 
Plainly Baal cannot help his worshippers in their 
extremity. Is there any Baal ? 

Now comes the turn of Elijah. He calls the 



ELIJAH. 295 

people near to him that they may see that every- 
thing is done fairly. He builds an altar of incom- 
bustible stone; he lays wood and flesh on the 
altar and deluges the whole with water. He 
deluges again and again, as if to make it impossi- 
ble for even God to set the mass on fire. Then 
calmly he breathes a simple prayer heavenward 
that heaven would reveal itself. The words have 
no sooner left his lips than down flashes the an- 
swering lightning from the clear sky. Vanishes 
in the mighty flame the sacrifice, the wood, the 
stony altar itself, and all the deluging water. 
The affrighted people fall on their faces. As soon 
as they gather breath and courage they shout as 
with one voice, The Lord he is the God, the Lord 
he is the God! 

And now, of course, Elijah is the representa- 
tive of Jehovah. For the time being he can do 
whatever he pleases; and in the name of God he 
orders the divine statute against idolatrous proph- 
ets, Deut. 13:1-5, to be executed on those impos- 
tor-priests who have so wofully and so long misled 
the people. He has them brought down to the 
brook Kishon and slain. 

Condign punishment having been inflicted 
and the nation having forsaken its idols, Elijah 
looks for rain from the long-brazen heavens. He 
prays for it. It does not come, as did the light- 
ning, on the instant — few heavenly answers come 
in that way in any age — but a servant has to go 



20 LONG AGO. 

seven times to a lookout before he sees the least 
sign of the coming rain. Then he descries a lit- 
tle cloud, no larger than a man's hand, rising out 
of the sea; and it takes some time longer for that 
cloud to expand itself over the whole sky and then 
break in glorious outpour. But long before the 
big drops begin to fall Elijah is sure that they are 
coming, and bids Ahab hasten away to Jezreel 
that the rain stop him not. 

Another leaf. The great miracle did not con- 
vert Ahab; it only intimidated him for a time. 
His w r ife Jezebel it neither converted nor intimi- 
dated. It enraged and hardened her. The iron 
became steel. She swore a great oath that within 
twenty-four hours she would have the prophet's 
life. He knew she would do her worst to be as 
bad as her word. When had that woman been 
known to turn pale at the sight of blood? She 
was no Lady Macbeth to cry, "What, will these 
hands never be clean ! All the perfumes of Ara- 
bia will not sweeten this little hand." So Elijah 
had to flee from his kingdom almost as soon as he 
had gained it. 

He fled to the wilderness of Horeb, miracu- 
lously fed on the way and miraculously sustained 
for forty days without being fed. Arrived, he 
had a wonderful experience. He is coming! pro- 
claimed a great wind that rent the mountains and 
brake in pieces the rocks. He is coming! shud- 
dered an earthquake that made the ground a bil- 



ELIJAH. 297 

lowy sea. He is coming! flashed a lightning blaze 
0:1 which the eye could not rest. He is here! said 
a still small voice whose accents soothed the sol- 
itary and discouraged man whom earth had quite 
forsaken, but whom heaven would never forsake. 
Well, one can afford to be forsaken of men provi- 
ded a friendly and comforting God will stand in 
their place. He is a magnificent substitute. Let 
Him come as it pleases him — with flame, earth- 
quake, and storm as his avant-couriers blowing 
their sonorous announcing trumpets, or with the 
still small voice alone — he shall be welcome. 
But in these days we expect him to signify his 
presence only in that silent speech that addresses 
itself to the ear of the soul. That is real, that is 
grand. May the God of Elijah grant it to us 
abundantly ! 

Only two leaves of the sacred record left. One 
records how the prophet suddenly appeared once 
more to Ahab as an embodied conscience, as that 
incorrigible sinner took possession of the field of 
the murdered Naboth; also how, in the brief da) 7 " 
of Ahaziah, he called down consuming fires from 
heaven on company after company of troops sent 
to apprehend him. It was not God's will that 
his confessor should become a dying martyr. He 
had been a living martyr all his days, and now it 
was time for the much-tried but kingly man to 
ascend the most kingly chariot that ever dazzled 
the eyes of men. 



298 LONG AGO. 

Behold it on the last leaf of all. One day the 
prophet came with his successor Elisha to the 
banks of the Jordan. Some hundreds of years 
before, that river offered a dry path to Joshua and 
his host. To-day it shall do as much for two 
men who, in the sight of God and history, are a 
host in themselves. The mantle of Elijah swept 
down on the waters, and, like a divine sabre, divi- 
ded them into two crystal walls, between which 
the men went over dry shod. Now the great 
orbit of Elijah's life comes back to Gilead, where 
it began to unroll its mighty curve. As the two 
ends come together and complete the glorious 
round, lo, " the chariot of Israel and the horsemen 
thereof!" Behind steeds of fire, pavilioned as in 
a sun, the prophet goes up as by a whirlwind into 
the welcoming heavens. Get thee away, O Eli- 
jah, to thy rest and thy glory, for it is time; but 
come asfain with Moses to shine as satellites to the 
Sun of Righteousness on the Mount of Transfigu- 
ration! 

In reviewing the career of Elijah we are 
struck with his adaptation to his times. It was 
no reed shaken with the wind that could then 
answer for a messenger from God, no man clothed 
in soft raiment and living delicately as in kings' 
courts. The scholar profoundly versed in the 
letter of the sacred writings, the orator skilful to 
recommend them in honeyed rhetoric, the phi- 
losopher wise to grasp and analyze and systema- 



ELIJAH. 299 

tize the foundation-principles of thought and reli- 
gion — such men, however useful in their places, 
were not the men to do God's work in Israel in 
the bad days of Ahab. The nation was apostate. 
At so small a remove from the times of David 
and Solomon, it is not likely that the general 
defection was promoted in any considerable de- 
gree by want of suitable religious information. 
The root of the evil was an extreme viciousness 
cf the national heart, stimulated by the example 
and power of daring and godless rulers. The 
king was a thoroughly bad man, without much 
force of character and not incapable of being in- 
timidated from the wrong, though other consider- 
ations had little force in leading him to the right. 
But Jezebel, his queen, was one of the worst char- 
acters it has ever fallen to the lot of history to 
record — a wild beast in the form of a woman. 
To more than the vileness of Ahab she added 
an audacity, determination, and passion in sin 
all her own. She stopped at no crime in pursuit 
of her purpose. Fierce, implacable, bloody — woe 
to the man who crossed the track of her injustice, 
debauchery, or idolatry ! These qualities gave 
her great ascendency over the more timorous 
spirit of her husband; and their conjoint govern- 
ment was hardly less terrible to man that it was 
revolting to God. To deal with such rulers of 
such a people a very peculiar man was needed 
and supplied in the person of Elijah. He was a 



300 LONG AGO. , 

foreordained champion. His neck was naturally 
clothed with thunder. To storms and battles he 
said, Brothers. This Boanerges, this Cceur de 
Lion, feared no face of clay. It mattered little to 
him whether the enemy of his God was royal or 
plebeian, a nation or an individual, dangerous to 
oppose or safe. He was a rough storm that ven- 
tilates alike city and country, that tosses with 
equal force the rags of the beggar and the robes 
of the monarch. A lonely man, apparently, with 
no family interests to imperil by the course he 
might take, accustomed to a coarse, hard life such 
as a proscribed man must expect. And, to make 
good his position against the whole weight of 
royal and national antagonism, wearing the glit- 
tering panoply of a worker of miracles. 

Does God ever leave his cause long destitute 
of a fitting champion ? Is not some man suited 
to the times sure to be raised up to fight the bat- 
tles of truth and religion ? If a profound scholar 
is needed with the quiet voice of his learning, 
he will be shaped in the shades of some Oxford 
with its classic cloisters; or, what is quite as 
likely, in the pastoral shades of some Stockbridge; 
and will make his appearance in due time. If 
the call be for a man of singular prudence and 
gentleness to pour oil on troubled waters, to 
soothe and persuade and win, he will be found 
coming out of his obscurity in season for his 
work, and his name, perhaps, will be Melanchthon. 



ELIJAH. 301 

And perhaps the times should have one of sterner 
mood, to go abroad in the spirit and power of 
Blias : an agitator, facing out of countenance 
wickedness in high places, smiting it with the 
sword of his mouth, bearding lions in their dens, 
neither giving quarter nor taking it; then supply 
will come to meet the demand and, perhaps, his 
name will be Luther. In no case will God leave 
himself without a witness. He will not indeed 
always crown the testimony with all the success 
we could wish, in our sense of the word success ; 
but the testimony the world shall have, and have 
it in just the kind and degree which God sees are 
suited to its circumstances. In this way God 
secures that no blame shall justly attach to his 
providence, whatever may happen; and in this 
way also secures that evil shall always meet the 
agencies best fitted to overcome it. 

May Elijah have many successors in his bold 
fidelity to a crooked and perverse generation ! 
God bade him confront Ahab and Israel with a 
terrible voice of accusations and warnings and 
judgments. He took his life in his hand and 
went. No shaking of the knees, no quavering of 
the voice, as the messenger delivered his message; 
but he smote the sinners, crowned and uncrowned, 
with eye that lightened, with brow that thun- 
dered, and with tongue like Attila's, " scourge of 
God." What had he to do with consequences? 

In these times we are not often called to such 



302 LONG AGO. 

a trial of intrepidity as befell Elijah. Still the oc- 
casions are many when to do what we ought is a 
severe tax on our courage. Fidelity to friends 
will sometimes oblige us to take the risk of alien- 
ating them. Duty to the public will sometimes 
demand that we do very unpopular things, things 
which will be largely thought unwise, unkind, 
and even intolerable. Men sometimes find it 
necessary to face large pecuniary losses in order 
to satisfy their consciences: and few find the path 
of business-honor always coincident with that of 
gain. It is well if we can meet such duties in 
the spirit and power of Elias. With no hesita- 
ting step, with no smiting knees of timidity and 
irresolution, did the single-handed prophet go 
forth to flail with rebukes and judgments a wick- 
ed king and summon an impatient nation, in 
mass-meeting assembled, back to the service of 
the true God. He was as lion-hearted as he was 
single-handed. Was not duty king? Had not 
God spoken; and what if Ahab should be angry, 
and Jezebel furious, and all Israel should join 
them in hunting to death God's one spokesman! 
Elijah knew how to die if necessary. He would 
bate from his commission not one word though 
the heavens fell. That is an example to inspire 
one. If every Christian would march up to his 
duty as courageously as did the Tishbite, many 
an Ahab who now troubles Israel would relent, 
and many an Israelite who now worships one of 



ELIJAH. 303 

our modern idols would find his way to a purer 
altar. Especially does the mantle of heroic Eli- 
jah become Christian ministers; and when in the 
day of great sins and dangers they resolutely step 
to the front to call things by their right names, 
and, whether men will hear or forbear, rebuke 
the Ahabs and the majorities with all authority, 
then let the patriot thank God and take courage. 
The land is not reprobate. There is hope of a 
brighter day. 

An active service of God is binding on every 
one of us. At the same time the active is far 
from being our whole duty. The passive virtues 
have their claims. Even Elijah, with his vast 
capacity for doing, was set the task of patiently 
enduring. For several years after he faced Ahab 
with drought and famine his energies were buried 
in exile; and after his great doings at Carmel he 
again retired from view to silently watch the 
course of events and bide his time for another 
mission. Meanwhile his mission was — the pas- 
sive virtues. Not that such intervals were passed 
in absolute idleness as a servant of God; for this 
is not after the will of God, nor after the style of 
devoted men anywhere. But so far as his work 
as a prophet and reformer is concerned, the great 
work of his life, that work was suspended for long 
intervals during which he could only pray and 
watch and exercise himself in holy patience and 
trust in regard to it. And great was the need. 



304 LONG AGO. 

His labors and exposures at times seemed with- 
out fruit: no human eye could see that the cause 
for which he had dared so much was making the 
least progress: on the contrary the wickedness 
and condemnation of the people seemed increased 
by his ministry among them. What was the 
use? Yet God had bidden him do all that he 
had done. And so he was obliged to content 
himself with a consciousness of having done his 
duty, obliged to stay himself on the wisdom and 
goodness of the Most High, obliged to school 
himself to patient and prayerful waiting and 
trusting. Doubtless the discipline was good for 
him. 

It is a discipline to which God calls all his 
servants. Whatever the good cause to which 
one has given himself, he must make up his 
mind to times when prayer is about the only sort 
of work he can do for it, and when it is better for 
him to be at the brook Cherith than in Jezreel, in 
the wilderness of Horeb than in the city of Sa- 
maria. He will find times when toil and courage 
will seem to have been in vain, and faith must 
gird up her loins to what is perhaps still harder 
work — resignation and endurance and patient 
waiting. One who has not the grace to be silent 
and still, as well as to dare and do, is but half 
qualified for any great mission. When God says, 
Move not, obedience is just as holy as when he 
says, March. Many a person belonging to the 



ELIJAH. 305 

" Shut-in Society" has -been obliged to comfort 
himself by this truth. Though the attitude of 
Elijah at the lone brook where the ravens were 
his only visitors, and in the cabin at Sarepta, is 
far less striking than when he confronted mon- 
arch and nation at Carmel with his august dem- 
onstration of the nothingness of their idol, yet 
in the sight of God the one attitude was, doubt- 
less, as worthy and useful as the other. 

As Elijah looked over the land he concluded 
that he was the only person in all Israel who 
served the true God. He was in a minority of 
one. A dreary conclusion to come to after such 
exposures and labors and miracles to reform the 
people; but, from his point of view, it seemed a 
just one. He became exceedingly discouraged. 
What did all his doing amount to? He had 
faithfully preached, a preaching famine had 
spoken still louder, preaching fires from heaven 
had argued, convinced, and destroyed; yet, so far 
as he knew, not a single soul had been permanent- 
ly turned from idolatry or kept from it. That 
was discouraging. What must have been his 
surprise and relief to learn from One whose sur- 
vey was deeper and wider than his that there 
were seven thousand men in the land who had 
not bowed the knee to the image of Baal! And 
perhaps good men now, when their labors seem 
without fruit, should oftener than they do take ac- 
count of the possibility that they have not rightly 



2>o6 LONG AGO. 

interpreted the aspect of things, and that under 
the barren surface there are seeds and sprouts of 
good due to them which they would rejoice to see, 
and whose appearance at some later day will 
prove to those who see only with bodily eyes that 
their labor has not been in vain in the Lord. 

Christian parent! mourning over your family 
on which prayers and instructions seem to have 
been thrown away, perhaps, after all, under that 
hard exterior your leaven is working and will go 
on to leaven the whole lump. Christian minister! 
saddened at hearing nothing from your many 
meetings and sermons, perplexed that neither 
study nor closet seems to take effect on the peo- 
ple, perhaps, after all, errors have been dissipated, 
temptations repelled, virtues strengthened, apos- 
tasies prevented, the way of the Lord prepared by 
your seemingly fruitless doings. Christian patriot! 
almost despairing of native land in view of the 
amazing tokens of a principleless life, or of dyna- 
mite principles that thrust themselves on your 
notice at every turn, almost ready to believe that 
free institutions cannot stand the strain of such 
tempestuous folly and wickedness as ferment in 
our cities, perhaps you should allow yourself to 
hope that the case is not quite as bad as it seems, 
that there is more soundness at the national heart 
than you have thought, more fear of God and re- 
gard to man, more prayers ascending and more 
duties done, than there are signs of on the surface 



ELIJAH. 307 

of the politics, the business, and the pleasures — 
so that for every Elijah whom you have counted 
God could tell you of seven thousand true Israel- 
ites. To human sight the obscure and hidden 
places are always a majority. What we see are 
the hilltops and not the populous valleys between. 
One has to look down on these from the heights 
of the sky, as God does, in order to have them all 
fall within his field of view. Such considerations 
should help us to keep up heart in the cloudy and 
dark day of good enterprises. Let us hope that 
we have more sympathy and support in them 
than are manifested. At least let us not forget 
that in every such enterprise God stands by us, 
though not a single man does, and that he is the 
Lord of hosts innumerable and bright who are 
sure to give their sympathy and support wherever 
he gives his. 

But what right have men who really are 0:1 
the side of the God of Israel to timidly keep them- 
selves out of view and throw upon a few Elijahs 
the whole responsibility and glory of a public 
confession ? It is a good thing if the seven thou- 
sand never bow the knee to Baal or any other 
idol, but it would be a vastly better thing if they 
would add to their faith courage and manliness, 
and go forth in broad day to do and dare for the 
truth in the spirit and power of Elias. Should 
the champions in the field be driven to comfort 
themselves with the idea that somewhere there 



308 LONG AGO. 

may be somebody who at heart sympathizes with 
them ? Is the truth fairly dealt by when we wish 
her well under our breath, and never venture to 
lift a finger for her till we are quite sure that we 
are well screened from observation ? If any of us 
are disposed to serve the interests of religion only 
in this muffled and subterranean way, we may as 
well understand that such servants are not ac- 
ceptable. What, shall we be allowed to go about 
such a work as men steal away to a robbery or a 
debauch ? The truth is ashamed of us if we are 
ashamed of the truth. If we try to save our lives 
by such disgraceful expedients we shall lose them. 
Fie on the unmanliness of the man who fears to 
be caught on his knees, or even to be thought 
seriously disposed ! Christ could have swollen 
the roll of disciples amazingly by allowing of a 
discipleship in masquerade, and by telling all who 
were ashamed or afraid to serve him by day that 
it would answer as well to serve him by night. 
But the inflexible command was, Confess me 
before men. This law has never been repealed. 
It does not deserve to become obsolete. Whoever 
wants the privilege of putting off his manhood 
before helping a good cause is not wanted by it. 

When nations are punished for their sins some 
innocent persons will be found suffering with the 
many guilty. The Lots will not often be con- 
ducted out of the Sodoms before the fires fall. If 
the fires be the pestilence, it will devour the aged 



ELIJAH. 309 

who had left the stage when the guilt began and 
the young who had not then entered upon it, those 
who have striven against the public guilt as well 
as those who have striven for it. If the punish- 
ment be famine, the fields of the seven thousand 
will parch by the side of those held by idolaters, 
and the best men will grow pale and haggard by 
the side of the worst. On account of this law of 
Providence, which practically makes every person 
in a degree responsible for the behavior of the 
public, it becomes a measure of self-defence with 
a good man to look after the conduct and charac- 
ter of his neighbors, and, if possible, to secure 
that their courses be as upright as his own. Him- 
self and family are held as hostages. Himself and 
family are passengers in the same ship of state 
that carries the general public, and a reasonable 
regard to his own safety demands that he do what 
he can to prevent the ship taking such a course as 
will bring her on the breakers of divine judg- 
ments. Especially is this true in a land where 
every one is allowed a hand in shaping the course 
of public affairs. Hence, when the Christian is 
praying earnestly for his country, when he is busy 
in scattering among the masses the principles 
which exalt and save, when he warmly interests 
himself that the national acts do not plunge us 
into a contest with the Almighty, and he is won- 
dered at by some Wall Street man whose private 
affairs will not allow of his looking after the city 



3IO LONG AGO. 

government, then let him say that, in addition to 
higher reasons, he has a regard to self-preserva- 
tion, and only hopes to escape the sword himself 
by preventing the public sins — that will be sure 
to unsheath it sooner or later. Let him affirm 
that judgments for national sins are no dead letter 
of a dead dispensation. They belong to the pres- 
ent order of things; they impend and threaten 
even under the blue arch of gospel times and the 
latest civilization. 

What an ending had the career of Elijah! 
Without the preparatory process of dying he rode 
to heaven in the 'chariot of fire — a sublime con- 
clusion of a sublime life ! But, after all, the way 
of his going to heaven was less sublime than the 
going. That any man should be taken up to 
dwell for ever with God is a wonderful thing, and 
never will it cease to be a wonder to those so 
happy as to experience this glorious translation. 
Though but one person ever shared with Elijah 
his evasion of death, multitudes have shared his 
transfer from earth to heaven. And the path to 
this latter and greater blessing is still open. First 
be translated out of the kingdom of darkness into 
that of God's dear Son, and then, after death, you 
shall mount to heaven as surely and perhaps as 
gloriously, if not as visibly, as did the charioted 
prophet. Was not poor Eazarus carried by an- 
gels to Abraham's bosom? That shining cortege 
awaits every Christian. What an ascension ! It 



EUJAII. 311 

deserves our ambition. We should count all 
things but loss in comparison with it. Let us 
pray for it and live for it. Let the pinions for 
that upward flight be now carefully forming and 
pluming within us against the day when they will 
be needed. If need be, let us rise up early and 
sit up late and eat the bread of carefulness, that 
we may enter gloriously into the rest that re- 
maineth, and survivors be compelled to think of 
us, not as dead, but as translated. 



XIII. THE FALLEN MANTLE. 



E1LISHA 

'The Worthy Stic 
cessor. 



EUSHA. 315 



XIII. ELISHA. 

An early country training has been thought 
very conducive to an effective manhood. Our 
most successful men in the walks of business, of 
learning, of statesmanship, and of Christian ser- 
vice, mostly passed their earlier years amid rural 
scenes and occupations. There they gained vigor 
of body, habits of industry, shelter from the gross- 
er temptations, the thoughtful and forecasting 
and determined moods that breathe in all the 
great operations of nature. Thence have come 
most of the great Christian workers of our day 
and of all days; and thence came KHsha, the son 
of Shaphat, of Abel-Mehola. When he first ap- 
pears in the Scripture narrative it is as a young 
man ploughing with oxen. 

An early beginning of Christian service, as of 
any other good vocation, is very desirable. Of 
course it is better to begin late than never. But 
it is vastly better still to start out in God's service 
and into his great field early in the morning. 
The earlier the better. There will be more work 
done; it will be done more easily and perfectly; it 
will bring greater wages. The man who begins 
to be a worker for God at the eleventh hour, or 
when his sun is westering, is always sorry that he 



316 LONG AGO. 

did not begin before. Blislia the son of Shaphat 
did not have that sorrow. When God called him, 
successfully called him, into his field, he was yet 
a young man. 

Whatever the call which God makes on us, it 
is a grandly good thing if we obey it promptly 
and zealously. Perhaps it is a call to some hum- 
ble work; perhaps it comes in the form of indirect 
and veiled intimation; perhaps to obey will in- 
volve sacrifices; yet, even in such cases, it is a 
grandly good thing to obey promptly and jealous- 
ly. Elisha was ploughing. Elijah came along 
and cast his mantle on the ploughman. That 
was all. Nothing was said ; nothing further was 
done. Had the young man been anxious to evade 
service in the cause of God he might have made 
the veiled character of the summons a pretext for 
neglecting it, and allowed the prophet to pass on 
without a servant, if not without a mantle. But 
he did not do this. He knew what the hint 
meant. He did not need to be told in so many 
words, and with an evidencing miracle, that it 
would be his duty henceforth to wait on the steps 
of Elijah. It was an inferior post — but he did not 
hesitate on that account. The plough must be 
left in the furrow, the farewell must be said to fa- 
ther and mother — but he would not hesitate on 
these accounts. He ran at once after Elijah; he 
said, "I will follow thee;" he slew his oxen and 
boiled their flesh with his tools, and made a festi- 



ELISHA. 317 

val for his friends and neighbors as if some great 
good fortune had happened to him, and as if he 
meant to have nothing further to do with his old 
pursuits, but to give himself unreservedly and for 
ever to the work of obeying the call he had re- 
ceived. In burning the very tools of his trade he 
burned the bridges and ships behind him. 

Certainly this is the kind of obedience that 
God wishes from all of us. Does he call on us for 
repentance? He wants us to turn from our sins 
without any delay and with all our hearts, even 
if his voice is not loud enough to shake the heav- 
ens. Does he call us to some specific Christian 
service? Probably the call is hardly more than 
hints and shadows of duty cast upon us by the 
common movements of Providence, in connection 
with general principles of the Scriptures. The 
young Christian hears no voice that sets the world 
a-trembling telling him in plain English that he 
must prepare himself to preach the gospel: he has 
only a mantle cast silently on him. The young 
minister does not open his Bible and read in so 
many words that he is to be a missionary: he has 
only a mantle cast silently on him. No layman 
has an express revelation, clear as the sun, that he 
is to gather a class for the Sunday-school or hold 
a religious conversation with his neighbor or 
give so much to a certain charity or be present 
at a certain prayer-meeting: he has only a mantle 
cast silentlv on him. The circumstances in which 



318 LONG AGO. 

Providence lias placed us create a probability, 
more or less strong, as to what our duty is — some- 
times a probability that gives full certainty, but 
generally one that falls far short of that; and this 
is all the call we have. We are bound to act on 
this as promptly and zealously as if an angel had 
spoken. What is according to the best of our 
judgment has as mighty claims on our doing as 
what is according to demonstration. The man 
who has thoroughly mastered this principle and 
governs his conduct by it; who on the mere cast- 
ing of a mantle stands ready to leave his half- 
ploughed field and slay his oxen and burn his 
tools; who is ready to do all this for the sake of a 
service, for the sake of those humbler forms of 
duty which get little notice and less praise among 
men, is a great man in the sight of God and a beat- 
itude of the Christian religion. For nearly all our 
duties are of the humbler forms, and nearly all 
our calls to them are like that which Elisha had 
to serve God at second-hand by serving Elijah. 

It is a maxim in war that to rule well one 
must first learn to obey. The child must have 
his long discipline of restraint and subjection ere 
he is fit to preside over the conduct of others. 
And commonly it is only by long schooling in 
an inferior station that we are prepared to take 
place in a higher. We are reminded of this fact 
when we notice what place in the old church was 
first given to Elisha. He was made a servant. 



EUSHA. 319 

For ten years he held this post before it was said 
to him, Come up higher. While pouring water on 
the hands of his principal and bearing his bur- 
dens after him and delivering his messages, he 
listened to his instructions, saw his example, and 
became acquainted with the general character of 
the sphere belonging to the chief prophet of Israel. 
Thus he was gradually trained into a ripeness for 
that great post. Just so, amid the silence and 
obscurity of some humbler sphere, most of the 
present greatness and usefulness of the world have 
matured. Just so God gives every man the lower 
for the sake of the higher. Deep in the nature of 
things lies a necessity for our being small before 
being great, for our being the servants of a 
prophet before we become prophets ourselves. Is 
there anything disagreeable in the form of duty to 
which you are now called — whether by the clear 
word or by the casting of a mantle? Consider 
that in this world the present is never for itself. 
It is meant as a stepping-stone to a superior con- 
dition. If you are faithful in the few things it is 
certain that in time you will come to rule over 
many things. Let it be your consolation and 
stimulus that, whatever may be the disadvantages 
of your present position, it is the necessary gym- 
nasium for something better, the apprenticeship 
by which you may, with suitable care, reach the 
skill and profit and dignity of the master-work- 
man. In a well-ordered army the soldier who 



320 LONG AGO. 

wants promotion can do nothing so likely to fur- 
ther his purpose as to throw all his energies into 
an able discharge of the duties of the post he al- 
ready has. His watchful commander will notice 
the shining and advancing faculty, and will re- 
ward it. In fact, that soldier is his own son 
whom he has placed in the ranks for the very 
purpose of qualifying him to be a commander 
himself. God is such a leader in chief and father 
— we such privates and sons. All we have to do 
to insure our rising, sooner or later, to higher 
grades of service is to do well the duties of the 
present moment. The usefulness, happiness, and 
dignity of our position in the kingdom of God 
may be ever on the increase. 

God may be expected to provide a successor to 
every great and good man whom he translates. 
When one king dies another ascends the throne. 
An endless chain is being forged on the anvil of 
providence: one golden link is hardly cold before 
a glowing new one is added to it. From the be- 
ginning God has not left himself without a wit- 
ness. The succession has been unbroken, though 
sometimes the links have passed through glooms. 
Patriarch has taken hold on patriarch, prophet on 
prophet, apostle on apostle, martyrs and confess- 
ors on martyrs and confessors, reformers on re- 
formers, and so on down to the present. Here is 
the true apostolic succession. Doubtless it will 
continue to the end of the world. And it is a 



EUSHA. 321 

succession to be rejoiced over. We will not be 
downcast when we see a great and good man 
drawing near the end of his brilliant career, will 
not exclaim, "How can we spare this man ? How 
the cause will suffer when he is gone!" for we 
know that somebody is being prepared somewhere 
to take his place, some Klisha to succeed the Eli- 
jah. As soon as the one is ready to depart the 
other will be ready to come. As soon as the one 
goes up the other will come to the front. For 
ten years the Elisha has been in process: now let 
him take the mantle that falls from the skies. 
And by-and-by, when his work is done, let him 
pass the mantle on to another generation. That 
is about the only sort of bequeathing which in 
these days will be sure to stand. This will stand; 
for is it not the Christian law, That which thou 
hast received of me commit thou to faithful men , that 
they may teacli others also? So we will joyfully 
expect that the cross will be passed faithfully 
from hand to hand till all the clans are brought 
together to the final victory. 

Christians have great encouragement to ask 
largely and persistently of heaven. "Open thy 
mouth wide. " " Pray and do not faint. " " Covet 
earnestly the best gifts." All such passages put 
us on being hearty, persevering, and large ask- 
ers. No doubt our limited receiving is largely 
due to our limited and easily discouraged asking. 
When shall we get it by heart that God is rich 

Long Ago. 2 I 



2,22 LONG AGO. 

and likes to be treated as if he were — is liberally 
disposed and likes to be treated as if he were? 
What if he does put us under the necessity of 
asking again and again, perhaps of wrestling in 
prayer! It may be that it is not because he is re- 
luctant, but because we are as yet unprepared and 
need the discipline of patient seeking. Elisha 
wanted a great privilege. On a certain day he 
and his master were taking their last walk to- 
gether. They went from Gilgal to Bethel, from 
Bethel to Jericho, from Jericho to Jordan, from 
this side of Jordan to the other side by grace of 
miracle and the cleaving mantle. Go back, said 
Elijah again and again. Again and again Elisha 
answered, As the Lord liveth and as thy soul liveth, 
I will not leave thee. He greatly wished to see 
with his own eyes the glorious translation which 
he knew was about to take place. It would be to 
him a fresh revelation of the wonderfulness of 
God; it would open for a few moments a window 
into heaven and the glory of the hereafter; it 
would lessen the pang of parting with his dearest 
earthly friend, and indeed with his own life, by- 
and-by, to get a glimpse of the glory beyond. So 
he would not take a nay. And he was at length 
rewarded for his persistence by seeing the chariot 
of Israel and the horsemen thereof, and a human 
saint borne heavenward in dazzling triumph. 
Now, when the Christian dies, we have to ima- 
gine the ascension: then, for once, it could be 



EUSHA. 323 

seen. No wonder that EHsha wrestled to see it. 
Perhaps you and I would have done the same. 
That glorious vision would have been to us a 
sonorous proclamation of our own immortality. 
It would have said to us, Well, after all, God 
does love and honor a really good man, though so 
little clear discrimination is made in his favor in 
the common providence of the world. It would 
have been to us a most welcome flash of the glory 
of the Lord, and an outlook for a moment into 
the heaven for which we hope, but which we find 
it so hard to realize. It would have been an in- 
spiration to us all our days. No doubt it was to 
EHsha. The fiery splendors of that ascension 
burned themselves indelibly into his memory; 
and all his days he must have congratulated 
himself on his perseverance in insisting that he 
be allowed to see the sublime ending of the saint- 
ly life whose fortunes he had followed so long. 

But in that same eventful walk EHsha did an- 
other instructive thing. He made this large 
prayer: I pray thee, let a double portion of thy spirit 
rest upon me. What an audacious and extrava- 
gant petition — at first sight ! Why, EHsha pos- 
sessed already a large portion of his master's 
spirit — the same lofty simplicity, the same bold 
and determined character, the same fearless and 
uncompromising fidelity to God. But he was not 
satisfied with this great possession: he wanted 
twice as much. He ventured to ask for what he 



324 LONG AGO. 

wanted. And, though the request was so enor- 
mously ambitious that Elijah pronounced it a 
hard thing to grant, it was granted. The servant 
rose at once to the level of his master. He be- 
came capable of doing and daring and enduring 
like him. Before he seems not to have possessed 
the power of working miracles: afterward he 
blazed out into a majesty of signs and wonders 
scarcely equalled by Elijah himself, miracles to 
take one's breath away — miracles in the mineral 
kingdom, in the brute, and in the human; mira- 
cles of mercy and of judgment; miracles in domes- 
tic life, iu politics, in war, and between nations. 
So he obtained according to his asking. He 
opened his mouth wide, and it was filled. Let us 
learn that God is both able and willing to allow 
great drafts on his treasury. Only it is not every 
sort of thing we can draw for: we must draw for 
things that seem good to God. But how shall we 
know what things are good in his sight? Often 
we cannot know in advance; we must leave God 
to judge for us. But as to one thing our way is 
clear, ages ahead: " Blessed are they that hunger 
and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be 
filled." 

All over society are many bitter fountains. 
Some of these proclaim themselves at first sight 
as fountains of error and vice and misery. But 
others are very attractive to look at; and around 
their decorated brims multitudes eagerly gather 



ELISHA. 325 

as they do at famous watering-places, and the 
drinkers come to take with great relish and in 
enormous quantities what in time works them 
sore mischief. I saw a man whose business pros- 
pered. And I saw also that as his gains went 
on increasing his heart grew more proud, more 
wrapped up in this world, more hard and selfish 
and disinclined to the things of God. In short, 
I saw that prosperity in business was to him a 
fountain of harm. I saw a man who was success- 
fully engaged in acquiring knowledge. And I 
saw also that as his stores of information grew he 
became more self-sufficient before God, more 
scornful of his neighbor, more skilful to do evil, 
more averse to sitting as a little child at the feet 
of the great Teacher. That is to say, I saw that 
success as a student was to him a bitter fountain. 
I saw a man climbing, and not in vain, for hon- 
ors. And I saw also that the higher he rose the 
more self-centred he became, the more ready to 
trample on whatever stood in his way, whether 
men or principle, the more dissatisfied with the 
humbling doctrines of the cross, the more care- 
less of the honor that cometh from God, and the 
more influential in warping the views and lives 
of other men into the same mistaken courses. In 
short, I saw that success in the pursuits of ambi- 
tion was to him a baleful spring. So it is every- 
where and continually — men drinking of these 
attractive earthly springs with as much eager- 



326 LONG AGO. 

ness as if they contained the elixir of life, and 
yet sickening and even dying by thousands around 
the fatal brims. 

And is there nothing which can be cast into 
these fatal waters to cure them of their insalu- 
brity? As soon as Elijah had ascended, Elisha 
returned to Jericho with the glory of that ascen- 
sion beaming in his face. Moreover some of 
the people had watched from afar his return, and 
had seen the Jordan again cut asunder by the 
mantle-sword. So they knew that Elijah had a 
successor. And they bethought themselves of a 
great service which that successor, with his 
newly found faculty, might do them. The city 
had a spring. No complaint was made of its 
looks; for aught anybody knows it was abundant, 
unfailing, clear as crvstal. But it was unhealth- 
ful. It poisoned men, and it poisoned the land. 
Could the prophet do anything for it? So they 
brought him to the brink. He cast salt into it, 
saying, "Thus saith the Lord, i have healed 
these waters : there shall not be from thence 
any more death or barren land." He did not 
abolish the spring ; he did a better thing, he 
cured it. 

Can we not do a like thing to those fountains 
of worldly business and knowledge and honor 
which so often prove hurtful to our best interests? 
Thank God ! we can. Religion is a sufficient 
alterative. Let prophets and apostles cast that 



EIJSHA. • 327 

iuto our gains, our talents, our learning, our hon- 
ors in just measure, and they will cease to corrupt 
us and begin to sanctify us. Then what was 
killing us will give us new life. Then what 
what was making us pernicious will make us 
useful. We shall be all the more helpful to man, 
and all the more grateful and obedient to God, for 
draughts of prosperity which would disorder and 
perhaps ruin carnal hearts. We are told of 
springs that hold stone in solution, and upon 
whatever their waters trickle for a long time 
there is formed a coating of rock; and sometimes 
a reptile long sleeping becomes ensnared in the 
hard accretion and wakes up too late to free his 
encased limbs, and, after some ages, the geologist 
smites with his hammer and finds him in the 
centre of a stone. If our souls are in a state of 
nature the various forms of worldly good are 
gradually building them up into stone. Unless 
we seasonably awake our imprisonment will be 
perpetual. We shall remain stony hard for ever 
towards God and religion. Shall we awake and 
fly from the ensnaring and hardening fountains? 
Shall we ask that they be abolished? Nay, they 
were designed to be used. Business and learning 
and honors belong to the scheme of Providence 
for this world; only they need to have the salt of 
religion cast into them. This will heal them; 
and then we may drink of them, not only with 
safety, but with actual profit. Worldly things 



328 ■ LONG AGO. 

may be means of grace — "earthly cares a heav- 
enly discipline. " 

After healing the waters of Jericho Elisha 
went on to visit the school of the prophets at 
Bethel; for, as the successor of Elijah, he had be- 
come the leading supervisor of such institutions. 
From the beginning till now such institutions 
have always needed supervising. They are the 
fountains of religious instruction for the next 
generation ; and it is therefore of the first impor- 
tance that they be kept pure. But when men 
separate themselves from the common employ- 
ments and needs of society, and come together in 
order to think and study, even on religious sub- 
jects, leisurely thought is apt to degenerate into 
idle and harmful speculation. The teaching of 
experience is that thought divorced from action 
soon becomes diseased. So the schools of the 
prophets have always been centres of danger as 
well as of blessing. They have always needed 
watching. And it was a leading part of the great 
function of Elisha to watch the theological sem- 
inaries of his time — to visit them and see to it 
that the young men in them were properly in- 
structed and trained. He was a Board of Visit- 
ors. 

On his way to Bethel he was wantonly in- 
sulted by a company of graceless youngsters. 
They were old enough to know better. It was 
important that the rising generation should be 



KLISHA. 329 

taught, if necessary by a severe lesson, that di- 
vine messengers must be treated with respect. In 
that day, perhaps, irreverence was the besetting 
sin of the young, as it has been in many another 
day. So God made an example of the ring-lead- 
ers. He who at his pleasure can summon in- 
struments of any sort from any quarter, summoned 
two wild beasts from the wood to rend the cul- 
prits, vindicate the majesty of religion, and be- 
speak for his prophet henceforth due attention 
and reverence. He was to be the chief religious 
instructor of the young in his time; and it was 
necessary that they, as well as others, should learn 
that, "He that despiseth you despiseth me, and 
he that despiseth me despiseth him that sent 
me." 

In due time other si^ns and wonders testified 
to the divine mission of Klisha, and they were 
mostly of the merciful sort. He made the bor- 
rowed iron to swim; he extracted death from the 
veins of poisoned people; he, after the manner of 
Elijah, multiplied the little oil of a poor widow 
into marketable quantities that redeemed her two 
sons from the hands of a creditor. 

Is God the God of the small and not of the 
large? Does he interfere only in behalf of obscure 
persons and places, never in matters national and 
international? Syria made war on Israel. Crafty 
plans were laid by Damascus to take Samaria by 
surprise. Troops marched stealthily to this point 



33° LONG AGO. 

and to that, expecting to find an unexpecting and 
easily captured post. They were disappointed. 
They always found the gates bolted, the walls 
manned, a superior force blowing trumpets of de- 
fiance in their faces. They were astonished. 
"Will no one tell me," said the disheartened 
Ben-hadad, "who it is among you that betrays 
my plans to the enemy?" "None of us are trai- 
tors," replied his courtiers, "but the prophet 
Elisha tells the king of Israel what thou speakest 
in thy bed-chamber." This was considerably 
nearer the truth than courtiers commonly get : for 
the God who in every age has known how to ex- 
pose and frustrate the crafty designs of the ene- 
mies of religion had, through Elisha, told the 
king of Israel what various strategies were on foot 
against him. "If this is the trouble," said Ben- 
hadad to himself, "I know how to cure it." So 
he sent a great force to Dothan, where he found 
Elisha then was. "Make forced marches, ye 
troops; come to the city by night; gird it on all 
sides with spears and swords so that no one can 
get away; now when the day breaks we will have 
him." The day broke and Elisha and his servant 
went forth to walk on the wall. Eo, the Syrian 
chariots and horse in every direction- -not a 
break to be seen in the hostile cordon that sur- 
rounded them. The servant was dismayed. He 
saw no chance of escape. Not so his master. 
He was calm as that old summer morning. Well 



EUSHA. 33I 

might he be, for he saw what the other could not 
see; he saw all the space between him and the 
Syrians crowded with a celestial host of protectors 
— with chariots and horses of fire. Guardian an- 
gels have never been a novelty in the world (for 
the angel of the Lord encampeth about them that 
fear him) ; but the seeing of them was a novelty — 
a very reassuring novelty to the servant when, at 
the prayer of his master, his eyes were opened on 
that dazzling body-guard. Plainly, instead of 
being in the power of the enemy, the enemy was 
in their power. Smitten for the time with blind- 
ness, the Syrians were led by the prophet into the 
heart of Samaria. "Shall I smite them," said 
the king. "Nay," answered the prophet, "but 
rather entertain them liberally and then send 
them away to their homes magnanimously.' ' 
This was done. This generous treatment had 
the effect one might expect. The bands of Syria 
came no more into the land of Israel till after a 
long time. 

But, after a long time, Ben-hadad seems to 
have forgotten the very unusual forbearance 
shown him. He made another attempt on Israel. 
This time he reached Samaria with his forces, 
and so straitened the city with his close siege that 
the people came to the last extremity of famine. 
Then Elisha again appeared as the messenger of 
deliverance. "Thus saith the Lord, To-morrow 
about this time shall a measure of fine flour be 



33- LONG AGO. 

sold for a shekel, and two measures of barley for a 
shekel, in the gate of Samaria." It seemed an 
incredible thing. A certain high noble did not 
hesitate to say that it was utterly past all belief. 
Why, there was scarcely any food in the city. All 
around the compact Syrians kept vigilant ward. 
" No, the thing is impossible," scoffed his majesty 
the natural philosopher in the face of the prophet. 
"Thou shalt see it with thine eyes, but shalt not 
eat thereof," was the calm reply. 

That night a mighty sound came swelling 
through the camp of the Syrians. What is it? 
they said to one another, and pricked up all their 
ears. It seemed to them like the noise of chariots 
and horses and a great host advancing upon them. 
It must be that'tJie king of Israel has hired against us 
the kings of the Hittites and the kings of the Egyp- 
tians. An ungovernable panic seized them. They 
left everything and fled. Arms, chariots, horses, 
tents, endless provisions — all were abandoned in 
the unreasoning and desperate fight. And when 
day came Israel found so much spoil in the for- 
saken camp that the famine prices went down at 
once almost to zero, and the unbelieving noble 
went down still lower ; for, having charge of the 
gate, he w 7 as trodden to death by the out-throng- 
ing people. He saw the abundance, but did not 
eat thereof. God has small liking for stiff-necked 
skeptics. 

AQ-ain there was war. This time between 



ELISHA. 333 

Moab on the one hand, and Israel, Judah, and 
Edom on the other. Jehoram and Jehoshaphat, 
the bad man and the good, struck hands and 
marched their united forces into the arid plains of 
Arabia Petrsea. Water failed the host. It seemed 
as if they all must perish of thirst or surrender at 
discretion into the hands of Moab. But there was 
one good man among the confederate kings, and 
he in their extremity bethought himself of the 
Lord, as good men are accustomed to do in their 
troubles. Is there any prophet of the Lord here? 
Some one tells him of Elisha. Just the man, says 
Jehoshaphat; the zuord of the Lord is with him. 
And so it was: and the word said, Make this valley 
full of ditches : ye shall not see wind, ncitJicr shall 
ye see rain, yet the valley shall be filled with water. 
Now all men to work! Do not stop to ask why, 
but cut up all this ground with trenches. Morn- 
ing came over the hills of Edom, and with it 
came the gurgling sound of running waters, pure 
waters, abundant waters. All the trenches were 
filled. And the Moabites looked forth from their 
strongholds into the valley, and the waters shone 
red to them in the morning sun. The ground 
seemed all veined and splashed with blood. Surely 
the kings have fallen out with one another ; they are 
being slain with their own sivords, and yonder red 
currents are streams of blood. Up, Moab, to the 
spoil! Wide open swung the gates, down poured 
the disorderly crowds — to find that God had sent 



334 LONG AGO. 

a strong delusion that they might believe a lie, 
to find an orderly and refreshed army ready to 
overwhelm them. All this for the sake of the 
good king Jehoshaphat; for the prophet had said 
to Jehoram, As the Lord of hosts liveth before whom 
I stand, were it not that I regard the presence of ye- 
hoshaphat, king of yudah, I would not look towards 
thee nor see thee. This was the fearless, outspoken 
Elijah over again. What loftiness of tone 1 what 
scorn of wickedness in high places ! Which was 
the kinglier of the two, the good man clothed in 
serge or the bad man clothed in purple ? 

Elisha passed through the city of Shunem. 
In that place lived a woman who counted it a 
great privilege to entertain so illustrious a guest. 
That she might do it more suitably she had a 
room built and furnished expressly for him in 
the best part of her house. Her careful hospi- 
tality met its reward. A son was given her in 
answer to the prophet's prayer; and when the 
child fell sick and died it was the prophet's prayer 
that brought him back again to life. 

This narrative reminds us of a much more im- 
portant fact, namely, that the God of Elisha is 
sure to come and loves to stay where his presence 
is desired and suitable preparations are made for 
his entertainment, and that whatever labor may 
be expended in this high hospitality is destined 
to have in the end an exceeding overpayment. 
The prophet in Shunem was an imitator of God 



KUSHA. 2>25 

in the world. Why this bustle in yonder sinful 
heart? What mean these sounds of the axe, the 
hammer, and the plane ? For what this going in 
of rich upholstery through the open door? And 
now we see ready a beautiful room and beautifully 
adorned; and w r e ask, For whom has all this pains 
been taken? Here, for some one, is the best place 
in all your heart. For whom, we pray you, is 
prepared this room of honor? Is it indeed for the 
God of Blisha instead of Elisha himself? And 
do you really imagine that this most august of all 
beings will be your guest, long for it and do for it 
as much as you may? Hush! it is too late for 
unbelief to question now, for here in very deed is 
God himself coming to take possession of the 
place prepared for him. Scarcely has the last 
stroke of preparation died away on the ear before 
he is at the door, prepared to fulfil his promise 
that they who seek him shall find that he will 
dwell with the humble and contrite, and that if 
any man love Christ and keep his words the Fa- 
ther will love him, and both Father and Son will 
come to him and make their abode with him. 
So "lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye 
lifted up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of 
glory shall come in." 

The Shunammite thought it a great thing to 
win a prophet to stop occasionally at her house; 
and so it was. But the God of that prophet is no 
tarrier for a ni^ht; and now that he has entered 



336 LONG AGO. 

the heart where repentance and faith have fitted 
up for Him a place, it is not to-morrow's dawn 
that will see Him resume his journey, nor the 
next, nor the next. He is now at home. Behold 
a permanent dwelling-place ! And as time passes, 
this prudent, forecasting heart, that did so much 
that it might have the privilege of entertaining 
God, will daily see new evidence that its labor 
was not thrown away, but was, on the contrary, 
the grandest investment it could have made. Its 
ignorance shall be instructed, its famines fed, its 
deserts made fruitful, its dead brought to life. O 
fortunate heart, that chose to be a habitation of 
God through the Spirit and then set apart and 
made ready a chamber for his occupancy! We 
predict that you will never repent this hospitality. 
If you should find imitators in all hearts, not a 
solitary one of them would ever repent it. When 
will men come to understand that there is noth- 
ing safer and happier, nothing wiser, higher, and 
holier, than to have God for our permanent guest; 
that all our building amounts to nothing unless 
we build a chamber for Him, that all our furnish- 
ing of home and body and intellect is a vain out- 
lay unless we furnish a choice place in our hearts 
for Him ? 

A great noble came to Elisha to be cured of 
his leprosy. He came with a peradventure in his 
heart. Perhaps the prophet was not able to reach 
so bad a case as his, for he was a leper as white as 



Eusha. 337 

snow. Perhaps the prophet would not be willing 
to help Naaman the Syrian, the leader of rav- 
aging armies. But the need was so great that, 
notwithstanding the uncertainty of success, the 
leper had undertaken the long journey from Da- 
mascus, and with chariot and retinue was at last 
at the door of Klisha. He had a high sense of the 
dignity of his position and decided preferences as 
to the manner in which he should be healed, if 
healed at all. He wanted that the healer should 
himself come out to him, and call on the name of 
his God, and strike his hand over the leprosy. 
He was willing to seek cure by some great enter- 
prise, if Elisha saw fit to so direct. But his views 
were not consulted. Elisha would not come out 
to him in person. And, instead of directing him 
to be rid of his disease by some great feat and 
aristocratic method, he bade him go and dip seven 
times in Jordan as any slave might do. The proud 
magnate turned away in a rage. Was he to sub- 
mit to such a humbling way of cure ! But the 
expostulation of servants and sober second thought 
finally determined him to follow directions and 
not throw away his only chance of being healed. 
The help after all was of more consequence than 
the way to it. So he went down to the despised 
Jordan and dipped and was whole. Then he felt 
reconciled to the method — felt quite reconciled to 
it as he looked on his flesh, all fresh and delicate 
as that of a little child, and felt the delicious cool- 



33& LONG AGO. 

ness of a new life coursing through his veins. 
And he found that he had no payment to make in 
return for the merciful miracle. It cost no thin q; 
but the trouble of going for it. 

Now let us go out of our Damascus, all we who 
are leprous with unpardoned sin, and see if we 
cannot have help from the God of Israel. There 
is no peradventure to us about his ability to help, 
nor as to his willingness. Though we are sinners 
of the Gentiles, though we have been hostile to 
him and even leaders in hostility, we have the 
best ground for believing that there will be no 
obstacle on his part to our receiving as complete 
healing as we desire. There may be an obstacle 
from ourselves. We may find ourselves unwill- 
ing to comply with the simple and humbling con- 
ditions on which alone the blessings we seek can 
be granted; for it will be required of us to do 
something far more opposed to prejudices and 
mortifying to pride than it was for that patrician 
Syrian to go at second-hand bidding and dip in 
the general bath of the Jordan. 

But here we are at the door of prophets and 
apostles. We will make our application. What, 
O Elisha, what, O Moses and Malachi, what, O 
Matthew and John and Paul, shall we do to be 
cured of our leprosy? May we not sit here erect 
in our chariots and have God's blessing come 
down on us like summer rains and pleasant 
dreams ? Or may we not get it by doing some 



EUSHA. 339 

honesty or giving some charity or going on 
some interesting pilgrimage? And from Moses 
to John they all answer, No. You must put your 
hand on your mouth and your mouth in the dust. 
You must not only acknowledge that you are 
guilty and undone, but you must feel that you 
are so. You must come down from your chariot 
and bow to the very ground your stubborn erect- 
ness, and with brokenness of heart ask pardon for 
the sake of the merits of another. You must con- 
sent to be made clean by washing in the same 
fountain that is used by thieves and murderers 
and still more abominable men. These no doubt 
are the necessities of the case. Shall our pride 
turn us away in disgust? Shall we insist on 
being grandees and majesties in the presence of 
heaven? Had we not better stop and reflect 
whether this is not our only chance of being 
healed? To be sure the way is a humbling one; 
but is it not better than no way at all? If we 
come back years hence to these prophets and 
apostles they will be sure to give us precisely the 
same directions which they give us now. What 
are the Abanas and Pharpars of moralities and 
philosophies to us? Do we not know that our 
disease is too radical to be reached by any waters 
which the Lord God of Israel has not blessed? 
Let sober second thought teach us wisdom. Let 
it show us that it is better to have God's way with 
salvation than our own way with destruction. 



34° LONG AGO. 

Now let us go humbly down, all we who are 
diseased and leprous with unpardoned sin, and 
dip again and again in the prescribed Jordan ©f 
contrition and Christ's blood. Many have done 
it before us; more will do it after us. Its efficacy 
is sure and quick. That great remedial bath will 
cost us nothing, though it means regeneration and 
the kingdom of heaven. And when the cure is 
effected, when we find ourselves clean before the 
divine law, when we feel a new life unto God 
throbbing love and trust and obedience to the 
very extremities of our moral being, we shall be 
as well satisfied with the manner of the remedy 
as with the remedy itself. 

When Elisha came to die the young king of 
Israel came to weep over him. Joash felt that 
the chariot of Israel and its horsemen were de- 
parting. Through his long life the prophet had 
been a greater defence to the nation than all their 
rocky ramparts and armies of warriors. And 
now they were about to lose the champion who 
in his garb of peace, was mightier than the 
doughtiest crusader, or than Achilles, bulwark 
of the Greeks, in his Vulcanian arms. Well 
might the young king call him father and weep 
at the thought of losing him. But the dvino: 
Blisha was allowed to console him somewhat with 
a legacy. He bequeathed to him three victories 
over Syria ; for, bad as Israel was, Syria was 
worse. The bequest would have been larger if 



EUSHA. 34I 

Joash had only used more understanding and 
more faith, and if, instead of smiting the ground 
three times with the arrow of the Lord's deliver- 
ance from Syria, he had smitten on till bidden to 
stop. And how much most of us lose — how many 
victories over her enemies the church probably 
loses — from slowness in understanding God's signs 
and from lack of strong, persistent faith ! God 
still speaks largely to us by other signs than 
words, saying, Here is an opportunity. There is 
an open door. If yon, will strike now yoit will win 
much. But very likely our minds are not on 
the alert to catch the whispered information, or 
we soon tire of acting on it when caught; and so 
we miss great advantages which we might have 
secured. Be wide-awake to the leadings of Prov- 
idence, O Christian ! Interpret promptly and 
wisely the signs of the times, O Christian church; 
for these are the present symbols and parables of 
the Lord; and when you have found out what 
to do, keep on doing till Providence bids you 
stop. 

Up to the very last — even far beyond the 
last — Elisha continued his usefulness. His very 
bones as they lay in the sepulchre revived a dead 
man who chanced to touch them. If all relics 
had such a faculty as that even stout Protestants 
would be glad to patronize them. Some three 
thousand years have passed since Elisha died, 
and his bones are now scattered dust, but he is 



342 LONG AGO. 

still potential for good in the world, and, no 
doubt, ever will be. His soul will be "marching 
on" through all the coming ages. The sacred 
record perpetuates him. As long as men believ- 
ingly read the Old Testament, his faith, his 
example, his sublime demonstrations of the being 
and providence of God, will be eloquent teachers. 
And no man's usefulness ought to die in ad- 
vance of him as that of some men is said to do. 
It ought to survive him, even through many gen- 
erations. He is bound to manage so as to be of 
service to the world up to his latest breath, and 
then, dying, leave instructive footprints on the 
sands of time. In fact, everybody docs leave 
footprints of some sort. The marks he is ma- 
king on the clay of the present will appear in 
the solid stone of future ages. The works of 
good men do follow them; and so do the works 
of the bad. Both sorts, being dead, yet speak. 
But what a difference in the speaking ! The 
one sort speak benedictions ; the other speak 
maledictions. Benedictions are what the life of 
Elisha is speaking to-day, and they are what our 
lives should speak long after we are gone. Let 
us see to it that the footprints we are sure to 
leave behind us be such as to guide heavenward 
the steps of our successors. 



XIV. GLORIOUS POLITICS. 



DANIEL 

'The Prayerful States 
man. 



GLORIOUS POLITICS — DANIEL. 345 



XIV. GLORIOUS POLITICS- 
DANIEL. 

It is in Judaea. Josiah, the good king, is on 
the throne and doing all he can to keep a way- 
ward people true to their God. But the times 
are troublous and threatening. On the southwest 
Egypt is a constant peril ; on the east towers the 
great Babylonian Empire, crowding out its boun- 
daries in every direction. And what if Josiah 
should die? His sons, Jehoahaz and Eliakim, 
alas, are unlike him in character, and promise 
but poorly for the future of the land. 

At this time Daniel was born — born in a 
princely home, perhaps in a royal one, probably 
in Jerusalem. Consequently Ave are to suppose 
that he had the best early advantages that a Jew 
of those times could have. The capital was the 
headquarters of the religious reformation: of the 
best teachers, the best manners, and the best 
morals. Here for some twelve years he grew. 
Then came the death of Josiah and, after an in- 
terval of three months, the reign of Jehoiakim — 
the sinner and the fool. Three years of evil- 
doing and blundering brought on him the armies 
of Nebuchadnezzar the Great, who took Jerusa- 
lem and carried away to Babylon some of the 



346 LONG AGO. 

principal people. Among these were Daniel and 
three other youths of like princely rank. 

As these four young Jews followed the army 
eastward — followed it, probably, as bound and 
guarded captives — what did they think of their 
future ? It must have looked dark and forbid- 
ding enough in the light of the burning homes 
behind them. How did they know that they had 
any future ? How did they know but that it 
meant death or a slavery worse than death ? All 
was darkly uncertain. Still youth is hopeful, 
and the good can always be trustful. 

On their arrival at Babylon the captives were 
subjected to an examination. For the king had 
said to Ashpenaz "that he should bring certain 
of the children of Israel and of the king's seed 
and of the princes ; children in whom was no 
blemish, but well favored, and skilful in all wis- 
dom and cunning in knowledge and understand- 
ing science, and such as had ability in them to 
stand in the king's palace and whom they might 
teach the learning and the tongue of the Chal- 
daeans." Daniel and his companions passed the 
examination satisfactorily. They were all re- 
markable for personal beauty, for their talents, 
and for their accomplished manners and attain- 
ments. Unlike many young persons having 
great opportunities, these Hebrew boys had prop- 
erly improved theirs. And now they began to 
reap the advantage. They shone in that civil 



GLORIOUS POLITICS — DANIEL. 2>A7 

service examination. And they would Lave 
shone still more had they been examined, as I 
fear they were not, on a still more important 
matter. Their blue blood, their fine abilities, 
their stores of knowledge, their shapely figures 
and handsome faces, were of little worth compared 
with the glorious religious principles which even 
at that early age had been securely enthroned 
over all their powers and attainments. Their 
piety was their strong point. This was their su- 
preme accomplishment, and a capital one to take 
with them into that heathen palace which now 
became their home. 

Daniel and his friends could not complain of 
their new accommodations. They were right roy- 
ally housed. Nor could they complain of the 
poor quality and quantity of their fare. It was 
as good as the king himself had. In fact it was 
too good — too rich and generous and stimulating. 
And this was not the worst of it. It was a kind 
of food which, either from its nature or mode of 
preparation, was forbidden to the Jew by the law 
of Moses. This latter consideration was decisive 
with Daniel. He was sensible of the importance 
of starting out rightly in his new life, and at once 
made up his mind to go by his religion and not 
by his appetite. So he sought, and with some 
difficulty obtained, leave for himself and friends 
to make an experiment, ten days long, of living 
on pulse and water. At the end of that time 



34 S LONG AGO. 

they were found fairer and fatter in flesh than 
others of their class who had been living on the 
king's dainties. The steward was astonished. 
He had expected to find them thin and pale and 
feeble — hinting broadly at skeletons and graves. 
But the experiment satisfied him that he could 
safely allow the lads to live as they thought best. 
It is said that a feather will show which way the 
wind blows: this little incident shows on what a 
self-governed and conscientious course of living 
the young scholars had even then firmly settled. 
Did they not like delicacies and dainties? If 
not, they were very unlike most young people. 
No, it was their sacrifice to principle. Their 
lower natures were already dominated by their 
higher. They made, probably, the first Total 
Abstinence Society in Babylon ; and it was con- 
siderably more comprehensive than anything now 
known under that name. 

Under their Chaldsean teachers the young He- 
brews made great advances. And it deserves 
special notice that these advances were due 
largely to divine help. The Scripture says, 
"God gave them knowledge and skill in all 
learning and wisdom. ' ' Is God an available fac- 
tor in education? Will students in all sorts of 
useful knowledge find it worth their while to 
make their Maker a partner in their labors? 
One would naturally suppose so. It would be 
strange if the Maker of our faculties could not 



GLORIOUS POLITICS — DANIEL. 349 

quicken and guide them. That he is sometimes 
disposed to do what he always can do is shown in 
the experience of those four eminently successful 
students in Babylon. God helped them to win- 
now the chaff from the wheat. He unlocked 
doors for them and gave them clews. And the 
consequence was that when the king came to 
confer with them on difficult matters he found 
them ten times better than all the magicians and 
astrologers that were in all his realm. I should 
not wonder if Daniel and his friends were in the 
habit of asking for what they so liberally received. 
"To have prayed well is to have studied well," 
is not by any means a new maxim, and may, for 
aught I know, be as old as Daniel's times. 

All the friends made great progress in the 
Chaldsean learning. But there was one particular 
in which Daniel stood out preeminent from his 
fellows. He alone was divinely taught as to 
dreams and visions. We make small account of 
our modern dreams. We say that they come 
through the multitude of business, from ill-health, 
from what last impressed us in our waking mo- 
ments, and so on. We seldom expect that they 
will come true. Nevertheless, they do once in a 
while, sometimes in a very remarkable manner, 
so that a believer in God and his government 
does not like to say that, even now, dream sare not 
sometimes used as divine messengers to suggest 
and prepare for what is about to happen. And 



$$0 - LONG AGO. 

he thinks he sees reasons why this means of di- 
vine communication with man may have been 
more largely used in the Long Ago than it is 
now, just as he thinks he sees reasons why mir- 
acles of many kinds may have been more frequent 
then. Then the written Word did not exist, or 
existed only in part, so that it was more necessary 
that God should speak to man by other means. 
He having spoken by such means, and having, as 
it were, accumulated a great fund of supernatural 
marvels to which the faith of after ages can go 
back for justification and support, the need of 
continuing them is evidently less, and, for aught 
we can say, may cease altogether. As a matter 
of fact they have practically ceased. God changes 
his means and modes to suit chanq-ed circumstan- 
ces. He has his old dispensations and he has his 
new. He has made everything beautiful in its 
season. Divine dreams were seasonable things as 
late as the days of Daniel; and they are always 
seasonable when God sends their evidence along 
with them. 

Nebuchadnezzar had one of these self-eviden- 
cing divine dreams. In the morning he tried to 
recall it, but in vain. He knew that it was a 
wonderful thing, that it had profoundly moved 
him; and he was convinced that it had for him a 
personal significance which it was important for 
him to know. But, for the life of him, he could 
not summon back the vanished picture. In 



GLORIOUS POLITICS — DANIEL. 35 1 

this difficulty he had recourse to his cabinet of 
wise men. It was their business to solve all man- 
ner of hard questions that might come up in the 
palace, and especially such as related to the border 
line between the natural and the supernatural: 
for, in those times, people had not got so far as to 
question the existence of the supernatural. That 
sort of nonsense was reserved for times much 
later. "Tell us your dream, O king," said the 
conclave of hoary Magi gathered in the audience 
chamber, "tell us your dream, and we will then 
tell you what it means." "That I cannot do," 
answered the king, " the thing is quite gone from 
me; and now it occurs to me that for you to tell 
me the dream would be a good way of proving 
that you are able to interpret it. How should I 
know that your interpretation is a true one? If 
the gods can give you a sound interpretation of 
the dream they can give the dream itself. So 
tell me the dream." They confessed themselves 
unable. They declared that the demand was un- 
precedented and unreasonable. On this the king, 
unused to be thwarted, long flattered to think 
that even the impossible must be within his 
reach, fell into a rage, pronounced them a set of 
impostors, and decreed that the whole lot of them 
should be put to death at once. " Be in a hurry 
about it," he said to the captain of the guard. 

Now Daniel and his friends officially belonged 
to this body of the Magians, though not present 



352 LONG AGO. 

at their session, probably on account of their 
youth. So the executioner came to Daniel. 
"Why is the decree so hasty?" said the young 
man. He sought audience of the king. Let 
time be given him to consult the God whom he 
served. The king, his first outburst of wrath 
having spent itself, consented. Then Daniel, 
who it seems believed in the special efficacy of 
united prayer, asked his friends to aid his prayers 
with their own. And their prayers were not so 
broad as to cover the whole universe; nor were 
they for the purpose of moral discipline; but they 
were for the specific thing just then needed, viz., 
the dream and its interpretation. An answer 
quickly came. Whereupon Daniel, unlike many 
of us who are always asking for favors and too 
often forgetting: to be thankful for them when 
they come, broke out into magnificent thanks- 
giving; for now many lives would be saved and 
God would be greatly honored. He hastened to 
the king. He told him that what the gods of the 
other Marians could not do the God of Israel had 
done; that the lost dream was of a great statue 
with head of gold and other parts of various met- 
als and earths; that this statue was smitten and 
broken in pieces by a stone cut out by invisible 
means from a mountain. He explained that this 
image meant a succession of kingdoms of which 
Nebuchadnezzar's was the most brilliant; but all 
would be replaced by a mightier and everlasting 



GLORIOUS POLITICS — DANIEL. 2)53 

kingdom which the true God would set up. In 
his explanations Daniel was careful to make 
much of the God of Israel, little of himself, and 
just nothing of the gods of wood and stone. It 
was not his sagacity nor his learning nor his 
goodness that enabled him to penetrate the 
king's secret, so inscrutable to the national idols 
and their worshippers: the feat was due solely to 
the God of Israel, before whom all idols were a 
vanity. In a right manly way did the boy-proph- 
et do his part that day before that volcano of an 
autocrat who had come near sacrificing him and 
his whole class, and from whom another eruption 
at almost any moment would not be strange. 
Royal boy! So thought Nebuchadnezzar as he 
bowed low before the young prophet. He recog- 
nized his dream: the dream proved the interpre- 
tation. He showered srifts on Daniel. He made 
him chief of the Magi. He made him governor 
of the province of Babylon, and, at his request, 
set his three friends in posts of honor under him. 

Nebuchadnezzar was now well convinced that 
the God of Daniel was a great God; but he was 
not yet convinced that he was the only God. He 
remained an idolater. He probably thought that 
each nation should stick to its own idols. And 
he meant that his Babylonians should stick to 
theirs. What is this immense thing going up in 
the plain of Dura? They have set up a pedestal; 
on it, with timbers and metals, they have built a 

Long A^o. 03 



354 LONG AGO. 

huge man-like figure, and now they have covered 
it with plates of gold. It is finished; and now it 
shines in the morning sun like the god of morn- 
ing. And now there must be a dedication festival. 
A dedication to what? Of course to the national 
god Bel. So come together, all ye peoples and 
nations and languages, and worship the god who 
has made you victorious over all lands ! And the 
people came in vast numbers. The monarch and 
his court came and sat in state. An immense 
orchestra, including all sorts of musical instru- 
ments, was on hand to add the inspiration of mu- 
sic to the splendor of the scene. Is everything 
ready ? Then let the herald stand forth and pro- 
claim that as soon as the music strikes up all the 
people, without exception, must fall down and 
worship the image on penalty of being cast into a 
fiery furnace; and yonder is the furnace blazing. 
There was a reasonable magistrate for you! There 
was liberty of conscience for you ! And there too 
was a fine specimen of unconditional submission 
as well as of Oriental despotism. Away burst the 
musical thunder across the plain, and down on 
their faces in worship fell all the millions. I say 
all; I should say all save three persons. These 
were Daniel's three Hebrew friends. Had Dan- 
iel himself been present there would no doubt 
have been four persons instead of three dragged 
up that day into the presence of the furious mon- 
arch. We who know Daniel are sure of that. 



GLORIOUS POLITICS — DANIEL. 355 

He was sick, or he was away in a distant prov- 
ince on affairs of state, or — in short, for some good 
reason he was not present to stand by the side of 
his friends as they stood bolt upright in grand 
protest against the universal idolatry that pros- 
trated itself around them. So they had to stand 
alone before the kino:. " Is this true that I have 
been told of you?" flashed from lip and eye of 
that tempest historically called Nebuchadnezzar. 
"True," said the men; "and be it known to 
you, O king, that we will not serve your gods, 
whatever the consequences." Then how the 
tempest raged ! All the winds of passion burst 
out in thunder. "Heap on the fuel, pour 011 
naphtha, heat the furnace seven times hotter than 
it is, and be quick about it — do you hear? We 
will see if there is any god that can deliver out of 
my hand." And the soldiers hurried, and fuel 
was not spared and the flames crackled and roared 
and the crowds trembled and the eyes of the king 
blazed impatience like his own furnace. But the 
friends looked calmly on. What, have they con- 
sidered how hot that furnace is getting to be and 
how small a matter it is just to bend their knees 
a little for a moment, and then they can make as 
much mental reservation as they please? Oh, 
yes, they have done all the considering they care 
for — did it long ago; the matter is SETTLED; you 
see it in every composed feature. 

"May it please your majesty, the furnace is 



3^6 LONG AGO. 

ready." "Then bind them hand and foot and 
cast them in — well within." The flames were 
so fierce that the men who executed the pressing 
order perished with the heat. Down amid that 
gehenna sank the holocaust sacrifice to Bel, and 
for a few moments disappeared from view. In 
such a crematory as that they should have turned 
to ash and smoke in a few seconds. Instead of 
that, lo, as the fiery sheet ever and anon wavered 
and lifted, the three saints were seen walking 
leisurely in the fiery bath in company with One 
whose glorious aspect proclaimed him superhu- 
man. The amazed monarch passed at once from 
the extreme of rage to the extreme of awe. Here 
was something never seen before. His <rods 
could do nothing of this sort. He approached 
the furnace and called, u Ye servants of the Most 
High God, come forth." Forth came the men; 
and when king and courtiers had gathered about 
them and with wide-opeu, curious eyes had ex- 
amined them, they could not discover that a sin- 
gle hair had been scorched, or that there was any 
smell of fire about them. With all his faults 
Nebuchadnezzar was a frank and magnanimous 
sort of a man. He could take back word and deed 
with as impetuous energy as he put them forth. 
On occasion he could confess himself in the wrong 
and retrace his steps as zealously as he had traced 
them. As he looked on those young men who 
had stood up so sublimely for their God and for 



GLORIOUS POLITICS — DANIEL. 357 

whom their God had so sublimely stood up, the 
active volcano, red with rivers of lava, suddenly 
became a vine-clad and fruit-laden hill. The 
faithful servants of God were at once promoted to 
offices of still higher trust and honor. By losing 
their lives in fidelity to conscience they saved 
them, as such men always do sooner or later, in 
one way or another. And besides, they had 
preached the one God in the most convincing and 
eloquent of all ways to vast multitudes. The 
crowds gathered in the plain of Dura never forgot 
that day, we may be sure. And still other crowds 
to the remotest parts of the empire heard of it; 
for the king, to make some amends for his vio- 
lence and to express his sense of the greatness of 
the God of Israel, issued a proclamation to all his 
subjects that if any should say a word against the 
God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego he 
should be cut in pieces and his house be made a 
dunghill. True Oriental despot as he is — impul- 
sive, violent, full of extremes, ungoverned and 
ungovernable — Nebuchadnezzar evidently has in 
him not only the making of a man, but of a rarely 
good man. "When Daniel came home and learned 
what had happened, he doubtless took his three 
friends in his arms and rejoiced over them as hav- 
ing fought a good fight. Perhaps he wished he 
had been there to fight it with them. 

Behold, the dreamer comctli again. It is Nebu- 
chadnezzar still. And this was his dream. Hesaw 



35 S . LONG ACO. 

a great tree, so high and wide that its top seemed 
to touch the sky, and its green and fruit-laden 
branches all the ends of the earth. There was no 
bird that did not find shelter and food among its 
green leaves; no beast but found shade and rest un- 
der its thick canopy; no tribe of men but ate of its 
profuse and omnipresent fruit. Suddenly an angel 
appeared above it and cried, "Hew down the tree, 
but leave the stump, securely protected by fencing 
of iron and brass, to sprout and grow again after the 
old manner." The king awoke. He did not see 
the command obeyed and the great tree, chipped 
through by the axe of the woodman, come thunder- 
ing down to the dismay of fleeing birds and beasts 
and men; but he knew that this must happen. 
In this case he had no difficulty in recalling the 
dream; all that he lacked was interpretation. For 
this he had recourse to Daniel. He laid the mat- 
ter before his master of the Magi with supreme 
confidence that he both could and would give him 
the true explanation. Had he not tried him on a 
harder riddle than that and found it an easy one 
to him? Had he not found him in all matters on 
which he had occasion to consult him the most 
upright and the most downright as well as the 
most wise man he ever knew? So he knew that 
the silence of Daniel for a while, and his troubled 
look, were not clue to ignorance of the meaning 
of the dream, but to the fact that its tenor was 
unpleasant. He encouraged him. He bade him 



GLORIOUS POLITICS — DANIEL. 359 

not to be cast down at any bad news lie might 
have to reveal. He did it in a tone of personal 
regard and esteem such as one king might use to- 
wards another. Nebuchadnezzar the Great was 
great enough to see that Daniel was more than 
peer to any sovereign that ever pressed a throne. 
At last the prophet confessed that the interpreta- 
tion was unfavorable. The king 1 was the great 
tree that so overshadowed the world and on which 
so many interests depended. And he was to be 
laid low, though not beyond restoration. The 
roots and stump of his power would remain under 
the care of Providence; and after a while they 
would revive and flourish again. So much was 
decreed and sure to come to pass: but perhaps the 
king might put off the evil day and lengthen his 
tranquillity by breaking off his sins; and Daniel 
was courageous and friendly enough to tell him 
so, and to counsel him to righteousness — a counsel 
that, very likely, not a single native subject would 
have ventured on giving. Perhaps the king ap- 
proved the counsel, and, to some extent, acted 
upon it; for the predicted disaster was delayed for 
a year. At any rate the counsellor did not suffer 
for his fidelity. 

Twelve months afterwards the monarch was 
walking, it may be, in one of those wonderful 
hanging gardens which he had made and which 
overlooked the whole city, and, although the walls 
were three hundred feet high, the surrounding 



360 LONG AGO. 

country. As his eye wandered over the palace, 
itself six miles in circumference, over the ancient 
city about it that covered two hundred and twenty 
five square miles, crowded with magnificent works 
of various kinds that owed their origin or their 
magnificence to him, his bosom swelled with pride 
and he seemed to himself almost divine. It was 
time for him to learn that the Most High rules 
in the kingdoms of men and giveth them to whom- 
soever he will, and that those who walk in pride 
he is able to abase. 

The same hour Nebuchadnezzar lost his 
throne, his palace, and his reason. He thought 
himself a brute, and behaved as such, and was 
treated as such. He was driven forth from men 
into the fields. The cattle became his fellows. He 
slept with them through the dewy night; like them 
he ate grass. His hair came to be as eagle feath- 
ers and his nails as birds' claws. What a fall was 
that! When has there been its equal? He con- 
tinued in this forlorn condition till "seven times 
had passed over him " — perhaps seven months, per- 
haps seven years. Then his reason returned. He 
remembered what Daniel had foretold, saw the 
reason why he was humbled, saw how completely 
he and all men were in the hands of God to exalt 
or abase — saw, in short, that the heavens rule 
and not Nebuchadnezzar the Great. He not only 
saw the fact, but cordially accepted it as the fit- 
tine thine. Now he was all submission: before 



c> e»" 



GLORIOUS POLITICS — DANIEL. 361 

lie was all pride and self-will. He fell on his 
knees and thanked the Most High for his restored 
reason, for the juster views and feelings that had 
come to him, for his sanctified afflictions. And, 
by the time he had gotten his lesson by heart, his 
nobles sought him and welcomed him back to his 
palace and kingdom. The tree-stump began to 
sprout and grow again vigorously. God finally 
gave him greater majesty and honor than ever. 
And Nebuchadnezzar, frank, magnanimous, 
"soundly converted" man as we may hope he 
was, wanted to tell the whole story of his folly, 
his humiliation, and his forgiveness to all his sub- 
jects — for the honor of the God of Daniel and as 
a salutary lesson to all men. So he wrote an en- 
cyclical — one of the sublimest things in all liter- 
ature — and recounted the facts, humbled himself 
and exalted God, and sent forth the proclamation 
not merely to his own people, but to all future 
generations. This famous state-paper, which 
took no counsel of the notion that magistrates 
and state-papers as such should not recognize God 
and religion at all, closes in these words: "Now 
I Nebuchadnezzar praise and extol and honor the 
King of heaven, all whose words are truth and his 
ways judgment; and those that walk in pride he 
is able to abase." 

I greatly admire that proclamation. It is by 
far the noblest and most enduring monument that 
the much-building Nebuchadnezzar ever con- 



3$2 LONG AGO. 

structed. His hanging garden, his palaces, his 
temples long since passed away. But this work 
of his will last as long as the world. The justness 
and greatness of its thoughts; the picturesqueness, 
splendor, and majesty of its expression; the com- 
bination in it of the historian, logician, orator, 
poet, and monarch, is something wonderful. But 
it contains something still better. What lofty 
faith in God it displays; what earnest desire to 
have Him known, revered, and served as widely 
as possible; what utter frankness, profound hu- 
mility, honest confession, manly outspokenness, 
and energy of religious conviction ! Would there 
were more such state-papers ! It greatly honored 
the God of Daniel — a thing it was meant to do. 
It also greatly honored Nebuchadnezzar — a thing 
it was not meant to do. Friends! you have read 
that proclamation many times; read it again, and 
see how natural it is for a thoroughly honest and 
downright reformation to proclaim itself and 
throw all its influence on the right side. 

During the more than forty years of Nebu- 
chadnezzar's reign Daniel seems to have contin- 
ued in his great post; not by such means as 
courtiers sometimes use to obtain and retain great 
offices — flattery, subserviency, unscrupulous man- 
agement — but by solid merit. He was worth far 
more than his weight in gold. Probably not an- 
other man so honest, so capable, so gifted with 
the faculty of succeeding in whatever he under- 



GLORIOUS POLITICS — DANIEL. 363 

took, could have been found in all the great Bab- 
ylonian Empire. The king knew when he was 
well off. He was himself too much of a man not 
to know a man — a great, well-rounded man — 
when he once fairly had eye on him. So he kept 
Daniel at his right hand during all his long reign, 
and until Daniel the youth had become Daniel 
the aged. 

Then came the days of the decline and fall. 
Other less able and less favorably known kings 
succeeded to a short-lived authority; so that in a 
short time the great and overshadowing monarchy 
which Nebuchadnezzar bequeathed had waned 
and narrowed far towards ruin. Subject kings re- 
volted, outskirting provinces and countries one 
after another fell off, on the east the hardy and 
warlike Medes and Persians became troublesome 
and menacing. Under these circumstances it was 
that Belshazzar, the grandson of Nebuchadnezzar, 
came to the throne. He was a weak and wicked 
prince. The sage counsellors of the earlier reign, 
with the sager Daniel at their head, were no long- 
er in favor. Everything was falling to pieces. 
And soon the king saw the enemy at his gates. 
God had called Cyrus from the mountains of Me- 
dia; and now that great captain had massed his 
forces at Babylon, and his legions could be seen 
from the walls going and coining, setting up cat- 
apults and battering-rams, building and digging 
for unknown purposes as besiegers are wont to do. 



3<H LONG AGO. 

But what have walls three hundred feet high and 
eighty-seven feet broad, amply garrisoned, and 
provisioned for twenty years, and wholly sur- 
rounded by an immense ditch filled with water — 
what has such a city to fear from the bows and 
arrows and military engineering of Media? So 
the Babylonians stood on their walls and mocked 
at the besiegers. And Belshazzar was not alarmed. 
As yet he did not know that Cyrus held a divine 
commission to capture the city, and that, at 
least where God is concerned, where there is a 
will there is a way. The way, however, did not 
at first present itself. Cyrus built towers of palm- 
trees to overlook the city, and made many at- 
tempts to carry it by assault; but in vain. He 
spread his army so as to blockade the city, hoping 
to starve it into surrender; but in vain. So for 
two years his efforts came to nothing. Belshazzar 
was confident that they would continue to come 
to nothing. 

In this confidence he determined to have a 
time of special merry-making. He sent out invi- 
tations to a thousand of his grandees to come and 
feast with him. Then slaves ran hither and thith- 
er; wardrobes and bazars were searched for their 
finest; there were the usual anxieties and heart- 
burnings; dressmakers and tire-w T omen wrought 
night and day. At last the appointed night came. 
It was dark as a moonless and starless night could 
be; but what of that? The palace itself was a 



GLORIOUS POLITICS — DANIEL. 365 

mountain of light, and poured out rivers of radi- 
ance in every direction. And now the chariots 
began to arrive — bronze chariots, inlaid with sil- 
ver and drawn by high-stepping steeds. Soon 
they came in long succession, coursing through bra- 
zen gates into paved courts, through files of uni- 
form to mighty flights of marble steps, and there 
discharging their plumed and jewelled freight 
under canopies of silk. Up, between long lines 
of gayly dressed officials and attendants, passed 
the stately and fair guests to doors of ebony and 
ivory — and disappeared. 

Ah, what a banqueting hall was that in the 
greatest palace the world then contained, crowded 
with the rarest spoils of all the surrounding coun- 
tries from Abyssinia to India ! In the vast area, 
flooded with many-colored lights, see hangings of 
Phoenician purple, tapestries pictured by the la- 
bors of many lives, carpets of Cashmere, couches 
of ivory and almug from Samarcand — in short, all 
of rare and precious in furnishing that caravans of 
east and west or the all-roving and all-gathering 
traders of Tyre had contributed to the splendor of 
Babylon ! See pillars, twined with flowers, losing 
themselves in illuminated domes. See tables of 
costly inlaid woods loaded with gold plate of many 
a fashion in which blushed the wines of Chios and 
Bshcol, the daintiest fruits that torrid or temperate 
zone ever ripened, the most delicate meats that for- 
est or pasture or sea ever furnished. But the 



366 LONG AGO. 

guests — there, above all, was Oriental magnifi- 
cence for you f All the beauty and rank of the 
city were there. What dazzling toilets ! Proud 
uniforms came and went, plumes nodded, gems 
blazed. There were faces and forms whose love- 
liness eclipsed the jewels they wore. A flourish of 
invisible music ! The king entered with his rich- 
est regalia upon him, and attended by his greatest 
officials and the women of his household. A 
prostration, a libation, and the revel began. 
They ate and they drank; they sang and they 
danced ; they listened to the music of orchestras 
and the music of flattery; they praised the king, 
and themselves, and the gods of wood and stone. 
From hour to hour the tumult crew. Their wine 
was hot; their blood was hotter. Faster and 
faster passed the gem-encrusted goblets; more and 
more loudlv rano- the sonQf and the laughter and 
the profane wit; and fiercer and fiercer throbbed 
the instruments. They drank and they danced; 
they danced and they drank; and the profession- 
als gave them the ballet and "chased the glow- 
ing hours with flying feet;" and there were clap- 
pings and shoutings of Well done! And the king 
said, as he drank his spiced wine, "Why is not 
this served me in the sacred gold that my grand- 
father brought from the temple in Jerusalem? 
There are no cups like those. Let them be 
brought. " And when they came the monarch and 
his wives and his concubines drank from them, 



GLORIOUS POLITICS— DANIEL. 367 

and caroused, and praised the gods of wood and 
stone which see not nor hear nor know. 

Suddenly a mighty hush fell on the scene. A 
moment ago it was all a merry Babel; now it is a 
"thunder of silence." What is the matter? 
Yonder, where all eyes are straining as if they 
would leap from their sockets, see that spectral 
hand. In its presence the effulgent candelabra 
burn dimly. It traces on the wall, with slow 
and steady finger, in flaming lines, the letters 
of some unknown language. Then how knees 
smote together ! No more revel and rout. No 
more wine and wassail. All is white-lipped con- 
sternation and ashen cheeks and faintings and 
shriekings and prayers. The king called for his 
wise men. "What does this mean?" They 
could not tell and dared not invent; so they con- 
fessed their ignorance. At this juncture the 
queen-mother came in and spoke of Daniel and 
the great part he had played in the reign of Nebu- 
chadnezzar, especially in matters that touched the 
supernatural. So Daniel was at once sent for and 
came. The king told him what he had heard of 
his gifts, told him of the failure of the other wise 
men to read the flaming scripture, told him that 
he should have the largest rewards if he should 
succeed where the others had failed. Now the 
prophet had small respect for a man whose crown 
was merely on the outside of his head. He de- 
spised both Belshazzar and his gifts. "Let thy 



368 LONG AGO. 

gifts be to thyself, and give thy rewards to an- 
other," said he. Yet he would explain the wri- 
ting. He then proceeded to set the king's sins 
before him in no courtly phrase, charging that he 
had known all about those wonderful dealings of 
the Most High with his grandfather that had 
brought him to humility and repentance; but 
that, nevertheless, he had not profited by the 
knowledge, but had hardened himself against 
heaven to the point of insolence and sacrilege. 
And now the retribution for all this was at hand. 
The hand was the forerunner. It was a doom- 
writing hand; and this was the doom: MexE, 
MenE, Tekel, Upharsin. God has numbered 
thy kingdom and finished it; thou art weighed in 
the balances and found wanting; thy kingdom is 
divided and given to the Medes and Persians. 
For at least once in his life Belshazzar was com- 
pelled to listen to a faithful sermon. He was too 
much alarmed to take the plain dealing amiss. 
He does not seem to have thought of questioning 
the accuracy of Daniel's interpretation. On this 
occasion, as on others, the words of the prophet 
were shone upon and proved by a light from 
above. They also, no doubt, had the light of 
conscience upon them — conscience that always 
has a private side window of its own from which 
to reinforce the windows that look heavenward. 
Did Belshazzar then and there fall down on his 
knees and repent? He may have done so: repent- 



GLOIIIOUS TOLITICS — DANIEL. 369 

ance does not always prevent chastising disasters 
in this life, though it does prevent their going 
over into the next. But conviction and terror are 
not repentance; and the forlorn king may have 
got no farther than these. It is a straw in his 
favor, however, that he kept his word to Daniel 
and had him proclaimed at once the third ruler in 
the kingdom. If it had not been done at once it 
would not have been done at all. The same night 
Belshazzar lost both his kingdom and his life. 
Favored by the darkness of the night and by the 
confusion and negligence of the revel, Cyrus was 
able to divert the waters of the Euphrates that 
passed through the city into a new channel, and 
thus to pass a force along the vacant bed into the 
heart of the city — perhaps was doing this while 
the terrible hand was writing doom on the wall 
of the palace. Judgment sometimes follows hard 
on the heels of warning. The breath of the pur- 
suer is hot on the neck of the pursued. 

Cyrus made his uncle Darius king of Babylon; 
and Darius made Daniel his prime minister. 
The cabinet consisted of one hundred and twenty 
princes : over these were three presidents, of 
whom Daniel was chief. He was the head states- 
man, the controlling genius, the man whom the 
king delighted to honor. Darius must have heard 
of the important part played by Daniel on the 
night of the capture of Babylon. He was also the 
brother of the wife of Nebuchadnezzar, and may 

Long Ago. 24 



37° LONG AGO. ] 

have heard from her of his great capacity and still 
greater character. But God's providence is a still 
better explanation. The great lesson taught Neb- 
uchadnezzar was that it is God who pulls down 
one and sets up another. Therefore let us say that 
God set Daniel again in his high place, attracted 
to him the notice and favor of the king. This 
favor grew day by day as the king came to know 
him better — to know how faithful and wise and 
comprehensively accomplished this myriad-mind- 
ed man was. So he began to think of conferring 
on him still greater honors. But, O envy, envy! 
wilt thou not tell us of some place that is inac- 
cessible to thee — some nook in the wide world 
wdiere a man or boy can get a little promotion 
among his fellows without getting the ill-will of 
any of them? Certainly such a nook was not the 
tent of the patriarch Jacob nor the palace of Bab- 
ylon. The other presidents and princes looked 
with envious eyes on the rising and overshadow- 
in g fortunes of the great Hebrew. Was there no 
way of pulling him- down ? They put their heads 
together — their hearts were together already. 
They agreed that to make out a case against him 
on the score of his official duty was out of the 
question. His record was so grandly clean and 
shining in that particular as to be quite above at- 
tack. Their sharpshooters must single out some 
other point for their arrows. Was there not some 
vulnerable point about him? W T hy, even Achilles 



GLORIOUS POLITICS — DANIEL. 3/1 

could be shot in his heel ! So they looked poor 
Daniel thoroughly over and concluded that he 
had one assailable point. It lay in his religion. 
They must contrive some way to bring his reli- 
gion into conflict with obedience to the sovereign. 
If that could be accomplished, they knew very 
well what would happen. They knew that Dan- 
iel was that sort of man that he would disobey a 
thousand kings rather than his One God. 

Having matured their plan they waited on 
the king in a body. They told him that, on con- 
sultation had, all the great officials of the Govern- 
ment, including the three presidents, had unani- 
mously agreed that certain public interests re- 
quired that a decree should be issued forbidding 
petitions to god or man, saving the king, for 
thirty days, under penalty of being cast into a 
den of lions. The king, supposing that Daniel, 
though not present, was party to the proposal, and 
having the utmost confidence in his wisdom and 
integrity, signed the decree without inquiry. The 
plan of the conspirators worked admirably. Their 
working hypothesis — truer than some working 
hypotheses we know of — was that nothing would 
prevent Daniel from carrying out the duties of 
his religion, not even the prospect of one of the 
worst forms of martyrdom. They were not mis- 
taken. Daniel, with an audacity of righteousness 
that fully equalled their audacity of wickedness, 
went three times a day to his usual place of 



372 LONG AGO. 

prayer precisely as if nothing had happened, and 
took no pains to conceal the fact, though he 
knew all about the decree and the plot against 
him. From early youth it had been a foregone 
conclusion with him that an avowed religion was 
a necessity, to be clung to at all hazards. So he 
did not have to go into a debate with himself and 
waste a good deal of time and worry over the 
matter. All he had to do was to go calmly for- 
ward on the old paths and take such consequences 
as might please God. This he did : and, his win- 
dows being open towards Jerusalem, he kneeled 
and prayed and gave thanks before his God for all 
the world just as if no decree had been passed. 
Of course the conspirators had taken care to have 
a plenty of spies on the alert, and so a plenty of 
witnesses. And they came to the king and told 
their story and proved it. A very needless trouble 
on their part. Daniel was not going to deny 
their charges and force them to prove every par- 
ticular, inch by inch, as it is rulable in these days 
to do. "Guilty," he said, " if it is guilt to obey 
God rather than man." Darius perceived himself 
caught in a trap. He was greatly distressed. 
Was there no way of extricating himself and sa- 
ving that jewel of a man and minister whom now 
he valued more than ever ? He sent the accusers 
away and tried for a long time to think out some 
means of evading that infamous decree which he 
had so incautiously signed. But the remorseless 



GLORIOUS POLITICS — DANIEL. 2)73 

men held him to it. Thev came to him a^ain as 
the sun went down, and said, "Know, king, 
that the law of the Medes and Persians is that no 
decree which the king establisheth may be 
changed." So the rascals were too mighty for 
him; and he was obliged to order Daniel to be 
cast into the den of lions, after feelingly com- 
mending him to the protection of the God whom 
he so faithfully served. He then went to his 
palace and passed a sleepless night in great dis- 
tress. How was it with those successful villains? 
Did they congratulate themselves and say, "We 
have managed well; we have carried our point; 
we shall have no more trouble with that Daniel 
who has so eclipsed us and kept altogether too 
sharp an eye on us; let us make merry"? How 
they passed the night we do not know; but the 
kingr W as full of tossin^s to and fro till the dawn- 
ing of the day. He then rose and went to the 
lions' den, and called out with a voice full of tears 
and sobs, "Daniel, servant of the living God, is 
thy God whom thou servest continually able to 
deliver thee from the lions?" The voice of Dan- 
iel came calmly back to him from the heart of 
the den, assuring him that God had sent his angel 
and shut the mouths of the savage beasts so that 
they had done him no harm whatever. Then 
was Darius exceeding glad. The glorious Oriental 
morning, just then breaking in the east, was not 
half so bright and full of music as the day that 



374 LONG AGO. 

then broke within the delighted monarch. His 
royal word was saved and Daniel also. "Break 
the seal, unbolt the door; come forth, O Daniel, 
greatly beloved, for whom the very heavens stand 
up; come forth to greater esteem and honor than 
ever. And as for those wicked men who tricked 
me into an inflexible decree against thee, what is 
to prevent my making an inflexible decree against 
them? Let them fall into the pit which them- 
selves have dug. Let them drink of the cup 
which their own hands have prepared. The 
measure they meted out to Daniel, let that be 
meted out to them." So the conspirators were 
brought and cast into the den. No angel inter- 
fered in their behalf. As soon as they dropped 
within the lions were upon them. So the wise 
w T ere taken in their own craftiness — a thing 
that happens oftener than is commonly sup- 
posed. 

Darius was so impressed by this miracle, in 
connection with such information about the God 
of Israel as Daniel gave, that he followed Nebu- 
chadnezzar's example and sent out a general 
proclamation in relation to the matter. He felt 
that it would be a relief to himself. He hoped 
that it would be of service to his subjects. And, 
like Nebuchadnezzar, he had no scruples what- 
ever as to the propriety of the civil magistrate 
making a religious proclamation. And this was 
a part of his proclamation : "I make a decree 



GLORIOUS POLITICS — DANIEL. 2>7 5 

that in every dominion of my kingdom men trem- 
ble and fear before the God of Daniel. He de- 
livereth and rescueth, and he worketh signs and 
wonders in heaven and in earth, who hath deliv- 
ered Daniel from the power of the lions." 

Ye neglecters of prayer, see the great value 
which Daniel the Wise attached to it ! Was he 
wise or otherwise in this? Was it enthusiasm 
and extravagance in him to hold on to his daily 
intercourse with heaven after such a determined 
fashion ? God did not think so. He was pleased 
with that prayerful obstinacy, and designed to 
honor it before heaven and earth when he sent 
his anorel to shut the lions' mouths. What a re- 
buke to such as never pray at all ! No lions 
threaten ; each has blessings to ask for and thank 
for, and at least as much time for prayer as Daniel 
had, and yet months and years pass without bow- 
ing the knee to God. Daniel would have pre- 
ferred a hundred deaths to such a life as this. If 
God was pleased with him, how displeased must 
he be with those who neglect prayer altogether 
when prayer involves no sacrifices whatever ! If 
the prophet could not afford to dispense with his 
devotions for thirty days, how can my neighbor 
afford to do it for thirty years? Another neigh- 
bor does not do as badly as this. He only allows 
small things to crowd out occasionallv his morn- 
ing or evening worship. The hurry of business, 
the call of a friend, the weariness of labor, sue- 



3j6 LONG AGO. 

cessfully tempts him to omit the private or the 
family sacrifice. Ah, if for such hindrances he 
consents to restrain prayer before God, how plain 
is it that in Daniel's circumstances he would not 
have done as Daniel did. And every time he 
reads how that servant of God, in full view of 
the open-mouthed lions, as regularly as the set 
hours came, went and kneeled in worship three 
times a day as aforetime, must he not feel re- 
proved by the eloquent example, even as though 
Daniel's angel had come and shaken at him a re- 
proving finger, saying, "What I did fcr him I 
shall have no occasion to do for you." 

The ups and downs of Daniel's life ceased 
when he came out of the lions' den. Through 
the reign of Darius and into that of Cyrus who 
succeeded him the great Hebrew continued in 
his great trusts and honors. Through three 
reigns he discharged the functions of a states- 
man; during five reigns the greater functions of 
a prophet. By angels and by dreams and by 
visions he was taught what would be the fortunes 
of empires and what the fortunes of the church 
and what the times and fortunes of the Messiah. 
These revelations he was inspired to commit to 
writing for the benefit of future ages. His states- 
manship profited his own times ; his prophetic 
character has profited all the times since he passed 
away. And when he passed away it was from 
great to greater. On the earth he was always 



GLORIOUS POLITICS — DANIKL. SJJ 

greater than his place ; above he found a place 
that fully matched his virtues and his powers. 

As Daniel approached the end of his long life 
he doubtless did as other aged people do — he be- 
came retrospective. And it must have afforded 
him exquisite pleasure to look back on such a 
career as we have tried to describe — on the good 
fight he had fought, on the most instructive and 
inspiring example in certain particulars which he 
had been able to leave to all coming time. 

I. Daniel, in his retrospect, had the satisfac- 
tion of seeing that he started out early on a prin- 
cipled and godly life. 

See the lad ! He is living in the palace of 
Babylon, surrounded by the worst temptations of 
heathenism. And how lives this Jewish prince — 
this child bred amid the snares of opulence and 
rank; this child bred amid a degenerate and back- 
sliding people, and now transferred by the for- 
tunes of war into as corrupt a court, perhaps, as 
the sun ever shone upon ? Does the boy consent 
to luxury and sloth ? Does he readily fall in, as 
most persons of his age would do, with the pre- 
vailing manners? Do good principles and the rules 
of his ancestral religion sit loosely upon him as 
he is fanned by the breezes and swept by the 
gales of temptation ? Far from it. He does not 
forget the instructions of pious parents or pious 
Levites. He scrupulously holds fast, with both 
hands, to the law of God in the smallest particu- 



37^ LONG AGO. 

lars. The dainty portions from the king's own 
table, his spiced wines and delicate meats over 
which the names of idols have been invoked and 
which at best are enervating luxuries — what has 
a young expatriated Jew whose friends and coun- 
try are in their graves to do with these? So he 
puts aside the defiling dainties. Mere pulse shall 
suffice him. The simplest peasant fare, instead 
of royal banqueting, the boy chooses for con- 
science' sake. And this is merely the straw 
showing the direction and force of the current. 
Already, at this early age, he is master of him- 
self; his principles are settled; his face is set like 
a flint towards all noble, manly, conscientious 
ways. His life is well begun; and what can one 
expect but to see it progress well and end well? 

There is a peculiar charm in youthful princi- 
ple and conscientiousness. One thinks how much 
may be made of a life thus prosperously started. 
One thinks how many bitter experiences that 
self-restraining and sin-fearing youth is avoiding. 
One thinks into what sweet and glorious flower 
the red and scented bud will have time to open. 
One thinks how many treasures may be laid up 
in heaven by him who goes into the vineyard 
early in the morning. We feel that it is a fairer 
offering when the dew and freshness of youth are 
laid on the altar of religion than when the few 
days and decayed powers of old age are laid there. 
An old man must be found walking carefully 



GLORIOUS POLITICS — DANIEL. 2)79 

and religiously — for is he not on the very thresh- 
old of his account? His virtue hardly seems a 
free-will offering. It is a beautiful thing to look 
back, far beyond the times of Christ, and see that 
young Daniel, amid great temptations, starting 
rightly in life, planting himself firmly in good- 
ness, resolutely putting away from his fervent 
heart the evil and embracing the good; and so it 
is a beautiful thing to look just around us and see 
youthful character taking the right bent and set- 
tling itself solidly to a principled and religious 
life. Is it not so, fathers and mothers ? Is it not 
so, ye who wish well to the community, the coun- 
try, and the age? When have you seen a more 
attractive object than some nineteenth century 
edition of youthful Daniel ? 

2. Daniel, in his retrospect, had the satisfac- 
tion of seeing that all his honors and prosperities 
had been worthily won and kept. 

His winning was great. He came to great 
honor, great power, great fame, and probably 
great riches. During his long life he seems 
never to have been long away from great and 
brilliant posts. These great distinctions were 
not gained by craft, by some tortuous policy, by 
time-serving and truckling to the weaknesses and 
passions of the powerful, by seeking first the 
kingdom of Satan and his unrighteousness. They 
were worthily won and nobly used. They ap- 
pear never to have been sought as chief end; in- 



380 LONG AGO. 

deed it looks very much as if they were never 
sought at all. He qualified himself for great 
things, he followed the leadings of Providence, 
and his greatness came. And when as illustrious 
as a subject could be, when Mayor of the Palace, 
when ruling with power almost regal from Susi- 
ana to the Mediterranean, we know very well 
from the general tenor of the narrative how he 
carried himself in his greatness. Not arrogantly, 
not oppressively, not selfishly ; but humbly, justly, 
and benevolently. He made high and right and 
gloriously shining things his object. It was for 
these his renown sounded, his authority com- 
manded, and his opulence expended. Such a 
man as he could have cared little for worldly 
greatness save as the means of promoting these 
ends. 

The way in which Daniel dealt with worldly 
prosperity is that in which all must deal with it 
who would secure their own best advantage or 
even safety. Riches, honor, power, are too often 
thought valuable under almost any circumstances. 
They are generally pursued as ultimate and un- 
conditioned good; and so they pass among us 
freely under the fair names of prosperity and suc- 
cess, without reference to the fact, which every- 
body ought to bear in mind, that there is only 
one set of circumstances under which they can 
possibly deserve such names. They must be ob- 
tained in a certain way, and used in a certain way, 



GLORIOUS POLITICS — DANIEL. 381 

or they have no value whatever. They must be 
gained by worthy means: not by trampling on 
the rights of others, not by stooping to low and 
mean arts, not by pursuing them with the eager- 
ness suitable only to the "one thing needful." 
Offices gained by the tricks of the demagogue 
are not worth the having. Profits made by over- 
reaching are no profits. And he who sacrifices 
a single duty or a single charity for the sake of 
the meat that perisheth thereby turns the bread 
into stone, if not into poison. Let me bend all 
my energies to secure an honorable place among 
men, strive for it more than I do for righteousness 
and salvation, and, though I gain my object, I 
might as well not have gained it. I press all real 
value out of it by the manner in which I lay hold 
of it. And one may do the same thing by his 
way of using the object after it is well obtained. 
Be that object influence or property or place, he 
has not only to come into possession of it in a cer- 
tain worthy way, but he must also iise it in a cer- 
tain worthy way, else all that is really desirable 
in it will exude and escape. Use your money 
selfishly, and it will plague rather than profit yon. 
Exert the influence you have for the purpose of 
embarrassing good enterprises and hindering the 
gospel, and it will do far more to make you 
wretched than it will to make you happy. In a 
word, all sorts of worldly advantages, so called, 
must be used as Daniel used his, if we would not 



3^2 LOXG AGO. 

have them prove to us so many disadvantages. 
They must be redeemed and sanctified by a prin- 
cipled and benevolent use. It is greatly worth 
our while to remember this ; for we are so apt 
to act as if gold is gold, come and go how it may; 
as if honor and weight amon^ men are things to 
be admired and desired, whether coining from 
above or beneath, whether doing God's work in 
the world or Satan's: than which nothing is 
more false. If a man is determined to better his 
condition, as the phrase is, by whatever means 
may seem most convenient, and, when bettered, 
to make the most of it for pampering his pride, 
his passions, his selfishness, in one form or an- 
other, it is very certain that his success will be 
an awful misnomer. A prosperity won and worn 
as was Daniel's is the only real prosperity. 

3. Daniel, in his retrospect, had the satisfac- 
tion of seeing that throughout he had lived a life 
of principle instead of a life of policy and self- 
indulgence. 

With some — and they are the lowest of all in 
the moral scale — the perpetually recurring ques- 
tion by which all things are tested is, How will 
it affect my present comfort and gratification ? 
Any course requiring them to curb present desire 
and to endure present discomfort is almost sure of 
rejection. "Live to-day" is their short-sighted 
motto. But there is another class who clearly 
see how preposterous is such behavior and regu- 



GLORIOUS POLITICS — DANIEL. 383 

larly eschew it. They ask what will be for their 
interest — Meaning their worldly interest on the 
whole. If it will promote this to sacrifice the 
convenience or happiness of to-day, they are ready 
to make the sacrifice. Every course proposed to 
them may be expected to find its way to this 
touchstone of policy; and woe to the measure 
that cannot show for itself a good balance of per- 
sonal profit as the world counts profit. They are 
ready for self-denials and sacrifices, but they must 
have reason to believe that their endurances will 
net them something in the way of honor or prop- 
erty or other secular advantage that is worth more 
than they give for it. But, thanks to divine 
grace, there is yet another class of persons with 
whom the test question which they carry through 
life is not, Is it agreeable for the present? not, Is 
it politic and remunerative on the whole for this 
world? but, Is it right? What does conscience 
say about it? What the written law of God? 
Now it was to this last class evidently that Daniel 
belonged. Throughout, his life was one of prin- 
ciple, as opposed to a life of policy or self-indul- 
gence. He knew how to sacrifice not merely to- 
day for the sake of to-morrow, but both these, 
with calm and easy magnanimity, for the sake of 
glorious righteousness. His virtue was not of 
the elastic and calculating sort. It was not reck- 
ing with the arithmetic of profit and loss. In no 
case does there seem to be the least effort to effect 



384 LONG AGO. 

a compromise between interest and duty. Not 
for a moment would he countenance the popular 
idolatry. Not for a moment would he abate one 
jot from the practice or profession of his true but 
despised faith. Is a haughty monarch to be re- 
proved and warned ? Daniel is the man to take 
his life in his hand and do it. Do royal edicts go 
forth forbidding what God has commanded? 
Daniel is the man to take stand at once by the 
side of the higher law and patiently accept all 
consequences. No trimmer of sails was he to 
catch the popular or royal breeze; you do not see 
his easy morals veering about to all points of the 
compass according to the caprice or wickedness 
of a heathen Court ; right onward he held his 
way, in sunshine and in storm, steering by the 
everlasting stars of princip!e which his raised eye 
never suffered to escape him ; keeping by his 
course though it lay in the teeth of the gale; 
keeping to his course though it was traversed by 
nearly his whole generation of time-servers sail- 
ing backward and forward, hither and thither, 
as the wind of convenience or pleasure chanced to 
blow. Most noble and admirable man! No 
doubt the courtiers of Babylon looked on thee with 
some such astonishment as the savage feels when 
for the first time he sees a great steamer moving 
steadily and powerfully along his waters without 
regard to wind or tide. What a magnificent ex- 
ample! How our better natures go out to meet 



GLORIOUS POLITICS — DANIEL. 385 

such a man and do him reverence! Does he need 
to be a prophet or a genius or a prime minister 
to command our respect ? We feel that in such a 
life as his there is something brighter than gold, 
more commanding than authority, more kingly 
than kings. Such a soul as that at death goes 
straight to God as a matter of course. Never tell 
me that it then ceases to be; I know better. And 
conscience whispers to each of us, Go thou and do 
likewise. Take to yourself the beauty and majesty 
of an unbending principle like that. Let duty 
be your magnanimous policy, unfaltering right- 
eousness your self-indulgence. Let come what 
will, keep on the path of rectitude; and when 
pleasure, all robed and garlanded like spring, 
stands at some turning and points down her gay 
by-path and says in soft accents, "That is pleas- 
ant," then answer you bravely while your step 
hesitates not for a moment, "But this is right!" 
Let come what will, keep to the path of recti- 
tude; and when policy, sharp-eyed and plausible, 
stands at some turning and points you down her 
crooked lane to where men seem borne aloft on 
human shoulders or drawn in cars triumphal by 
human steeds or washing out yellow sands, say- 
ing with urgent voice, "That is profitable," then 
make you answer as sturdily as some Daniel, 
while your step lingers not, "But this is right!" 
Here is manliness for you. Here is glory for you; 
here music grander and sweeter than ever rose to 

Lon? Ago, 25 



386 LONG AGO. 

heaven through cathedral domes. Oh, here is 
likeness to God as well as to Daniel, and a shining 
promise that where they arc you shall be also. 
God grant us many such politicians! 

4. Daniel, in his retrospect, had the satisfaction 
of seeing that he had given a brilliant example of 
the consistency of a very religious life with a very . 
busy one — secularly busy. 

Sometimes men pressed with worldly cares and 
labors feel as if it were quite impossible for them 
to attain any high Christian standing till they 
have attained more leisure. They must have 
more time for direct personal culture than they 
can now command. These cares and tasks of the 
daily calling, filling up so much of life, are a 
heavy drag on religious progress, and they hope 
some day to get beyond the necessity of spending 
so much time and thought on matters of this 
world. Then they will be better Christians; then 
their piety shall shine with a brighter ray. If these 
men are right, if great business and great piety 
are incompatible with one another, and to live 
near to God they must live far from the din and 
whirl of exacting secular affairs, then they may not 
wait a few years till it is convenient to disengage 
themselves from their unhappy circumstances. 
They should do it at once. If poor, they should 
remain poor; if ignorant and despised, let them 
remain ignorant and despised; but let that soul- 
damaging business be abridged, and, if necessary, 



GLORIOUS POLITICS — DANIEL. 387 

extinguished, without delay. One thing is plain: 
that our religion is to be taken care of at what- 
ever expense. But it is not true that the highest 
grades of piety cannot be gained and maintained 
under a heavy pressure of secular affairs. Witness 
the experience of Daniel. The successful student 
of the Chaldaean learning, the preeminent states- 
man holding the most prominent and responsible 
post in the Babylonian Empire — what drafts on 
his time and strength and thoughts he must have 
had! And yet he managed to be a saint of heroic 
stature all his days. Despite the fulness of his 
hands, he found time to pray three times a day. 
Who will pretend that he cannot do as much ? 
Despite his many engagements, he found time, no 
doubt, for daily reflection and reading of the Scrip- 
tures, also for keeping holy the Sabbath. Who of 
us is so busy that he cannot do as much ? And 
the prophet no doubt early discovered that it was 
possible to make all his worldly business a reli- 
gious discipline, by carefully seeing to it that 
each item as it came up was tested by the divine 
law and made to square accurately with its re- 
quirements, and so actually made his multitudi- 
nous business a multitudinous means of grace. 
And who of us will pretend that he cannot in the 
same way change base metals into toM ? The 
fact is, life was meant to be busy — busy in all 
honorable and useful ways, busy in sowing and 
reaping, busy in buying and selling, busy in a 



388 ' LONG ACxO. 

hundred various pursuits that minister to the 
needs and comforts of human life. No one has a 
right to throw into the gulf of nothingness any 
part of his golden youth, his strong manhood, or 
his experienced age. Every man should have his 
hands full of work — full as Daniel's were, though 
not of the same sort. Only he is bound to see 
that conscience and religion preside over all he 
does. Only he is bound to see that his every 
work recognizes the authority of God above and 
the needs of man below, and that the avails of it, 
whether in the form of knowledge or influence or 
property, are held and used as trusts of the Great 
Proprietor. 



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